Union Ceremony for Vivekan Don Flint and Louis Gabriel Ceci

UNION CEREMONY
FOR
VIVEKAN DON FLINT AND LOUIS GABRIEL CECI

Saturday, March 18, 2000

CELEBRANTS: Rev. Roger Jones, Brian Jarvis, Remy Ceci

GUESTS: Jim Simmons, Annie Looney Linton, Sara Elward

BELOVEDS: Vivekan Don Flint, Louis Gabriel Ceci

Other Participants, Family, and Friends

[Pre-ceremony recorded music: San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.]
JIM:
Oli Aloha

Onaona i ta hala me ta lehua
E hale lehua no ia ta noe
E ta'u no ia e'ano'i nei
E a li'a nei no'i o Tahiti mai
A hiti mai no 'outou
A hiti pu no me te aloha
Aloha e, aloha e

[Fragrant with the breath of hala and lehua,
This is the sight I long to see
Of this my present desire.
Your coming fills me with eagerness.
Now that you have come,
Love comes with you.
Greetings, greetings.]
ROGER: Would all those here who would participate in the celebration of this union please join hands.

[Celebrants, Guests, Participants, and Beloveds join hands.]

ROGER: Let this place be a blessed place.

BRIAN: Let this day be a blessed day.

REMY: Let this company of friends, of family, of lovers, be blessed.

ROGER, BRIAN, & REMY: Blessed be.

[All drop hands.]

BRIAN: We are gathered here in this place made sacred by our intention to honor our two Beloveds, Vivekan Don Flint and Louis Gabriel Ceci, who stand before us today, and to bear witness as they choose a new way to stand before the world.

REMY: We are here to bless their union and embrace them, both as individuals and as the loving family they create by their joining.

ROGER: O Lord our God, who made humankind in your image and likeness and gave it power of all flesh everlasting, and who has approved your saints and apostles Philip and Bartholomew becoming partners, you who did consider your saints and martyrs Serge and Bacchus worthy to be united, bless your sons, Vivekan Don Flint and Louis Gabriel Ceci, granting unto them peace and love and oneness of mind.

REMY: Behold! How good it is for brothers to love one another.

Song: "How Good It Is"
BRIAN: Splendid to us and much sought after is the sweet smell of love, established in the time of the patriarchs, guided by the voices of the prophets, and sanctified by the preaching of the apostles: because of all beautiful things of the earth, love is the most excellent.

ROGER: It is through love that we glorify God, who has gathered us together from different places to come and see the treasury of love. Yearning for this love Abel brought to God the firstborn of his lambs; yearning for this love, Enoch the scribe pleased God with his justice.

BRIAN: Love strengthened the faith of Abraham so that he could prepare a welcome for the angels; love rescued Daniel from the lion's den; love caused Elijah to be taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire; and love saved Elishah on the mountain.

REMY: Yearning for this love, the three holy children were preserved from the fire in the furnace and offered a hymn of praise to God. And it is through love that we all come to know God as God; the mortal, the immortal; those in time, the eternal; those on earth, the celestial.

ROGER: You have said, Lord, "Ask and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened onto you." We, therefore, kind Lord, mindful of the holy commands of your awesome and glorious covenant, knock on earth: open to us in heaven. For where there is love, hatred does not rule, demons have no power, and there is no sin.

ANNIE:
If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.

Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offense, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.

Love does not come to an end.

In short, there are three things that last: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
Song: "Nigra Sum"
REMY: When Peter came up to Jerusalem the apostles and brothers in Judea criticized him and said:

ROGER: So, you have been visiting the uncircumcised and eating with them, have you?

REMY: Peter in reply gave them the details point by point.

BRIAN: One day, when I was in the town of Jaffa, I fell into a trance as I was praying and had a vision of something like a big sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners. This sheet reached the ground quite close to me. I watched it intently and saw all sorts of animals and wild beasts-- everything possible that could walk, crawl or fly. Then I heard a voice that said to me:

REMY: Now, Peter; kill and eat!

BRIAN: But I answered: Certainly not, Lord! Nothing profane or unclean has ever crossed my lips. And a second time the voice from heaven spoke:

REMY: What God has made clean, you have no right to call profane.

BRIAN: This was repeated three times, and then the whole cloth was drawn up to heaven again.

Just at that moment, three men stopped outside the house where we were staying. They had been sent from Caesarea to fetch me, and I had no hesitation in going back with them. When we entered the man's house, he told us he had seen an angel standing in his house who said, "Send to Jaffa and fetch Simon known as Peter; he has a message for you and your entire household."

I had scarcely begun to speak when the Holy Spirit came down on them the same way it came upon us at the beginning. And I realized then that God was giving them the identical thing he had given us; and who was I to stand in God's way?

REMY: Wonderful and much longed for is the sweet smell of love. On earth, it sows the seeds of piety, and in heaven it gathers the sheaves of justice.

ROGER: Lou and Don, we are here today to witness your expression of love and to honor your vow of commitment as you pledge yourselves to serving the higher good in each of you and the family you two now comprise. Would you now read the poem by Rumi you have chosen as an expression of your vows.

BELOVED LOU:
I see my beauty in you. I become
A mirror that cannot close its eyes

To your longing. My eyes wet with
Yours in the early light. My mind

Every moment giving birth, always
Conceiving, always in the ninth

Month, always the come-point. How
Do I stand this?

 BELOVED DON:
We become these

Words we say, a wailing sound moving
Out into the air. These thousands of

Worlds that rise from nowhere, how
Does your face contain them? I'm

A fly in your honey, then closer, a
Moth caught in flame's allure, then...

 BELOVED LOU AND DON:
Empty sky stretched out in homage.
[Remarks by Lou.]

[Remarks by Don.]

[Lou and Don join right hands.]

ROGER: O Lord Our God, designer of love and author of peace, who grants us all things necessary for salvation and bids us to love one another and forgive each other our failings, bless and consecrate, kind Lord and lover of good, these your sons who love each other and have come into this holy place to be blessed and consecrated.

BRIAN: Grant them unashamed fidelity and sincere love. Grant them grace and prosperity. Grant them health and life. Grant them to love each other and to abide unhated and blameless all the days of their lives.

ROGER: O Lord our God, who has made two into one and has given us one to another, who blesses all things pure and timeless, send Thou now down from heaven thy right hand full of grace and lovingkindness over these thy sons who have come before Thee and given their right hands as a lawful token of union and the bond of marriage.

REMY: And wrapping the pair in every grace and in divine and spiritual radiance, gladden them in the expectation of thy mercies. Perfect their union by bestowing upon them peace and love and harmony, and protect and bless them through the prayers of all those present here today.

ROGER, 2, AND 3: Behold! How good it is for brothers to love one another.

[Don and Lou embrace.]

Song: "Beautiful Dreamer"
SARA:
I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant--
Among other things--or one way of putting the same thing:
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,
. . . . .
And the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back.
You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.
. . . . .
Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
. . . . .
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
. . . . .
'Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: "on whatever sphere of being
The mind of a man may be intent
At the time of death"--that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which shall fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare forward.
    O voyagers, O seamen,
You who come to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination.'
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.
    Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.
REMY: Would all those who have witnessed and blessed this union please join hands.

[All join hands.]

ROGER: This place has been a blessed place.

BRIAN: This day has been a blessed day.

REMY: And blessed is this company of friends.

ROGER, BRIAN, AND REMY: Blessed be!

[All drop hands.]

[Recessional recorded music: Happa.]