Why Not Now?

Saturday evening, I officiated Emily and Nick’s wedding ceremony at the Dallas Museum of Art, in Dallas, Texas. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:

Now, one of the primary tools I use to arrive at these remarks is the autobiographical essay I ask each person I marry to write. Sometimes lessons for life appear as nuggets in these essays; other times there is an underlying theme to be uncovered. In the case of Emily and Nick, the themes did not need to be uncovered; they were presented up front, and they each went deep.

Interestingly, the thematic underpinnings for Emily and Nick’s essays could hardly be more different in their sources. Nick is somewhat conventional, and I do not mean that as a value judgement. His theme comes from his high school, St. Sebastian, which also reflects his upbringing by his grandmother, Mary: “Love God, Work Hard, and Take Good Care of One Another”. Nick says, “These words stick out to me, because they are much of what Mary had taught me over the years, for they embody what she stood for, exemplified by her watching mass daily and saying the rosary, working hard every day… until she was 83 years young, and taking care of her girls, Denny [Nick’s grandfather], and every guest… I had known all along that this way of life was not revolutionary, but foundational…”

Emily’s theme comes from an educational source, like Nick’s, but a slightly less conventional one. Again, no judgement. Well, maybe a little bit. (Not really.) Emily says, “My favorite Peloton instructor (incidentally, I did not know that people had favorite Peloton instructors), Kendall Toole (probably a good Irish Catholic girl), always says, ‘Life is like an EDM [Electronic Dance Music] song: You feel the music build… then you must prepare and when the drop comes you fall into the fight.’ Just like in life, with every build you must learn to handle the load and adapt to the highs and lows. Some EDM songs are more intense, others continuously build, and some remain mellow. My spiritual journey is, oddly enough, no different.”

Though their themes’ sources are slightly (OK, more than slightly) different, I find this idea of a theme that guides you, a philosophy of life, if you will, not only refreshing, but vital. As William B. Irvine says, “Without one, there is a danger that you will mislive… a danger that you will look back and realize that you wasted your one chance at living.” 

Now, when you have such a philosophy of life, it is much easier to answer the two questions I ask every couple to address, why marry and why now? Emily says, “To bring this metaphor home, just like an EDM song, you never know when the big drops are going to come, and in life we don’t either… During COVID I realized that even on the world’s worst day and in what seemed like the darkest of times, I felt this ever-present sense of warmth around me the entire time. Nick is simply the light and love of my life, and I know he always will be. Despite everything going on in the world I want him to be beside me for every high and every low… Just like our ketubah [Jewish marriage contract] says, our two hearts really do beat as one.”

Nick, ironically, adopts a Jewish practice in addressing this, answering a question with a question (really a number of questions): “With marriage as our bond, driving a thoughtful deepening of our commitment to one another, the real question I’ve asked myself is ‘Why Not Now?’ rather than ‘Why Now?’. I’ve known since shortly after our first dinner… that I loved Emily; that’s never been in question. If the next step in building our lives together, and eventually a family, is marriage, then why wait to reaffirm the happiest decision of my life to date? I can’t think of anything I’d rather do more than marry Emily and start the ‘rest of our lives’ together, and no one who has ever known me has ever described me as patient, except for Emily, so why practice patience now?”