THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART SIXTY-EIGHT:

The corners of Eden's lips twitched slightly in a little grin as she headed toward the living room. She doubted any other bride had ever come in on just this music and rather expected a bit of a reaction to it. But the music was not for anyone in the room but her and Marshall. The lyrics would be the beginning of what she wanted to say to the man who stood there waiting for her by the fireplace. And as soon as she saw him she forgot there were any others present.

Martha played a short introduction and then her clear soprano filled the room. "Ah, sweet mystery of life at last I've found thee!" Connie's eyes opened wide and she stared at her cousin. Eden, though, was blissfully unaware of all the eyes upon her. The only eyes that mattered were the ones beholding her from deep in the soul of the man in rust-colored tweed. It was toward that she walked as Martha sang the words to the old song. "Ah, I know at last the secret of it all. All the longing, seeking, striving, waiting, yearning...the burning hopes, the joy and idle tears that fall."

Marshall knew the song. It had been one of his mother's favorites. Eden had no way of knowing that, though, had no way of knowing how often he'd stood as a boy beside the piano bench as his mother sang it to his father, how his father always took his mother's face in his hands when the last note faded away and kissed her. He'd never thought of it as a bridal entrance song, but knowing she was on her way, was coming toward him as the familiar words winged around him with all their memories of love, brought sudden tears that blinking could not quite stem. Then she was there. Mike had taken her right hand and placed it in Marshall's left, stepping  back and away.  And Marshall was enveloped in the beauty of love, old and dear, flowing on and into love that was new and nothing less than everything. His fingers laced through hers, lifting her hand to his lips as Martha sang, "And 'tis love and love alone the world is seeking. And 'tis love and love alone that can repay. 'Tis the answer, 'tis the end and all of living. For it is love alone that rules for aye."

Peter was wise enough to let the silence continue after the last note had faded.  The moment was full enough without words from him. Marshall still held Eden's hand to his lips. It seemed everyone in the room was holding their breath. Then he whispered, "'Tis the end and all of living," and still clasping it, lowered it to his side, turning his face toward Peter.

Mike had watched Marshall's face when the music started, had seen the naked emotion spread over it then center into what he felt for Eden. Despite his own dreams, the deep stirrings in his own heart towards her, something in Mike felt suddenly humbled as he watched Marshall. Then Mike's eyes turned down towards Eden and the response that was there in her uplifted face, the utter completeness of her love and commitment, made him feel like an interloper onto a brightly-lit stage where he had not been cast in a role. He realized his attempt at rope cutting a moment before, though from a genuine heart, had been feeble at best. No, he said firmly to himself, no. This is not yours. This never was. And he knew it. No more self-deception. He knew

it entirely and the knowing lifted something from him so that he was suddenly able to inhale a breath more deeply than he had for some time. He noticed Ryan was studying him and gave the barest of thumbs-up, to which Ryan lowered his lashes in a quiet acknowledgement between life-long friends.

Ryan had been worried all day about Mike what with Eden so completely unaware of what she'd asked him to do for her. He had no doubts that Mike would make it through the ceremony. He'd grown up knowing that core of strength in Mike that stood despite the storms. Yes, Mike would make it through the ceremony, smiling and gracious. It was after that worried Ryan. After, when Mike would be alone again in his cabin. He saw Mike's gesture with his thumb, knew Mike meant it in a way to encourage Ryan not to worry. He'd seen the long breath, the shift in the way Mike was holding his shoulders, but had no idea what his friend was thinking in that
moment. But he closed his lids briefly to let him know he'd seen.  He'd try to stick as close to Mike as he could after the ceremony, but there would come that time when Mike went home. It was inevitable.  His jaw tightened. What then?

Edith, her eyes, too, going from Marshall's to Eden's, dabbed at her face with a Kleenex she'd been wise enough to tuck up her sleeve. To love...again...to love...even more.  Yes, my darling, yes.

Peter Powers gazed from face to face around the room. For the first time in his career in the ministry he was not so sure another word needed to be spoken, not in the whole ceremony. Everything needful was already lying quite bare, quite fully expressed. For a moment he was actually tempted to say I now pronounce you husband and wife and just be done with it. The thought of Jesus coming up to John the Baptist in the Jordan came to his mind. Jesus did not need to be baptized, not really. He had no sin to wash away. And yet he came, saying to John's protests, "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness."  And, in that spirit, Peter smiled a small, close-lipped smile then said, "There is already so much welcome in this room that it would be redundant of me to bid you welcome, indeed, I find a certain redundancy in that I should speak at all. And, yet, welcome felt is only magnified by welcome spoken and so I do say welcome. I say it now in the original sense of the word...well come... for we have, each one of us by our own paths, well come to this moment where we are privileged to witness, to be a part of  the union of this man and this woman. Marshall, Eden, though this is not a church, the ground where you stand is holy ground because God is here and there is no ground where He is not. You bring to this moment all you have been, all you are, all you hope to be, and you give it, give it freely one to the other. What needs to be said in this place needs to be said, not by me, but by you to the other. And so it is in the beauty of the simplicity of that that I ask you now to face one another, holding both hands, as Marshall makes pledge and promise to the woman who is becoming his wife."

Eden turned enough to hand her bouquet to Connie, then back to face Marshall, slipping both her slender hands into his much larger ones. His fingers were warm, holding hers firmly yet softly, and his face was tipped down toward hers just as though he were looking into her soul. And she knew he was. Firelight and candlelight danced on his features, highlighting brow and curve of cheek, golden, amber, like his suede. His face was the most wonderful thing she'd ever seen in her life, his green eyes open, trusting her with their lack of vision. No, there was nothing about this man that lacked vision. Not one thing.

He was rubbing the pads of both thumbs across the backs of her hands, suddenly finding it hard to speak. He swallowed to ease the thickness in his throat and slid his left hand up past her wrist a bit, just enough to run his fingertips over the wide, tight cuff, to find the beginning of the long slit, enough to get in touch again with the reality of her dress. Then he returned his hand to hers.

"Eden," he said, his deep voice warmed by firelight and emotion into a rich honey-flow of sound, "Eden."  He said it twice, then paused. "In times past, the use of a given name was not taken lightly but was something both earned by acquaintance and given as favor. I say your name... Eden...and I am humbled by the fact of my right to have it on my tongue." He smiled. "It is, I know, an old-fashioned concept and yet it has great value to me, for in this world where things

so often are taken before they are given,  part of my pledge to you as my wife is that I will ever honor you, will ever treasure all things, no matter how small, that you bring to me, will do my best always to recognize the value of the gift of you. It is nothing less than grace you offer me,

the giving of favor with no qualifications to be met, no boundaries to speak of edges or ends.

And it is how I promise to love you, with no edges and no endings. What I feel for you comes from a source that fills as I pour it out.  It is, somehow, not only in me, this well that has no bottom, but I find myself immersed in it from without. I swim in it, breathe in it, my heart

beats in it, and all I want is to take you into it with me, around me, in me."

He paused again, rubbing his thumbs more. "I had hoped, for years I had hoped, that somewhere my beautiful half existed, that half of me that was parted from me upon my coming into this world."  He lifted his chin a moment toward the ceiling, then turned his face back down to her. "I find a destiny, a strange, unbelievable destiny in how your path finally crossed mine. We all dream, each of us, how love will come. Never once did I ever imagine it would come to

me in a flow of icy mud when my last breath was only one gasp away."  He shook his head a bit and smiled again. "But you got me up and out of so much more than mud. You got me up and

out of a way of thinking, of living, that had grown all too settled into solitude. I thought I had passed some point where I would come to know the warmth of love freely given, but you rose upon my life like that sun I've never seen, scattering away all my lonely shades, and in your presence I know what sunlight is. There are a thousand thousand words I could say to you, I whose tools of trade are words, but three small ones say everything. I love you. I simply, completely love you and I give you my vow today that I will never stop, that I will be faithful to you, loving you and none other beyond the end of my days. Freely, as God has given me life, do

I join my life today to your life."

He stopped, but his mind was still racing with all the possibilities he could have said to her. Was it enough? Had he said enough? The thousand thousand words were all bumping into each other for a single intense moment when he'd finished. But he drew in a long breath, lifted both her hands in his, kissed the back of one and then the other and whispered, "I love you," and the words unspoken were suddenly all said.

Eden was blinking hard. He had both her hands in his and she had nothing to wipe them away with, so several larger teardrops tracked down her cheeks.  "I...I...didn't kn...know," she rather stammered, "I never even dreamed that my heart could hold as much love as it's doing at this moment. And it's you, my darling Marshall, it's you who has filled it so. I feel it expanded, still expanding, in my chest because it wants, it needs, it simply...must...reach out and wrap itself around you, through you. You come to me, bringing all that you are, and I am left in amazed wonder that you have. I am so completely yours that to promise faithfulness seems entirely unnecessary. And yet I do speak the words to you that I will love you always, love you and none other."

There was no one else in the room. There was just her and Marshall and endless space around them and in their coupled solitude she said to him what lay in her heart, genuine, even slightly awkward. "Some place, some time, I don't know exactly where or when, I think I'd lost myself these last few years.  Then I almost literally stumbled across you and in finding you, I found me again. You've given me not only you, you've given me back to myself but in a new and different way. You've made me...more...than I ever was. And all that I am with you, because of you, all of it, every bit, wants nothing else but to cherish and adore you.  And this I promise you, Marshall Sinclair, that I choose freely to walk beside you into the future. I trust you with everything I am and I pledge to you that it is safe for you to trust me with everything you are. You make each moment of my life more beautiful and kind simply by your presence. You are my rock, my home, my safe harbor and you have made me believe again that anything is possible. I first loved you

in the rain, and I promise to love you when the grass is fresh and filled with daisies and when

it's dry and even the weeds have died. I will love you in snow and sunshine, in darkness and in light. You have attached wings to my heart and I ache with the longing, the necessity to soar into
your being.  Marshall, you are the chosen companion of my heart, and it is with gladness and unending joy that I join my life today to your life."

Peter spoke again. "Marshall, do you have Eden's ring?"

Luke's sweaty little hand was curled tightly, still, about the two rings in his pocket. He repeated Marshall's careful instructions to himself. First the small ring, then the big. First the small, then the big.  They were waiting. Oh, no! Suddenly he wasn't sure which ring was small and which was big!  He loosened his grip, feeling them frantically with his fingers. One of them settled way down in the deep corner of the pocket of the old suit. Which one did he still have in his hand?

He couldn't tell! He couldn't...tell!!! It felt big to him, but then his own fingers were so small that any adult ring felt big. His forefinger scrabbled after the one nestled in the pocket corner. It was wedged! He closed his eyes tightly, concentrating desperately on getting it loose so he could tell if it was the big one or the small one. Marshall said he was important enough to do this, old enough to be given this special job. Marshall said....oh! He got it! Yes, yes! That one was bigger than the other. Now...which one did he give first? He couldn't remember! Then he felt Marshall's right hand gently cup his cheek. It was patient, kind. He opened his eyes, blinking up at Marshall's face, forgetting that he couldn't look back at him. "I...I...," he stuttered, then suddenly remembered. First the small, then the big!  He slid the big one way down over his
thumb and withdrew his hand from his pocket, holding out the smaller ring, almost gasping in relief. Then he realized Marshall couldn't see his hand and so, using his left hand, he turned Marshall's over and lay the ring with his right on Marshall's palm, pressing it down just a bit to be sure he knew it was there. Marshall smiled at him just as though he could see him, then turned and handed the ring toward Peter.

Peter took the ring from Marshall's palm, and prayed, "I ask the blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ on this ring, on the one who gives it and the one who wears it."  He got the ring back into Marshall's hand and Marshall turned to face Eden again, holding it between his thumb and the tips of his fingers. She couldn't get a clear look at it, but she lifted her left hand so that the very end of her ring finger contacted his fingers. He held the ring there, passing the end of his tongue quickly over his lower lip.

"More than once I've quoted to you God planted a garden eastward in Eden. Eden was God's gift to man, a place where all his needs were met, a place of extreme beauty, extraordinary peace and communion. In you, God has gifted me, my Eden, and in you all my needs are met, in you I have found the extremity of beauty and peace and communion." He began to slide the ring, bit by little bit, as he spoke, turning his fingers enough so that she could see its top. He'd asked that she leave her engagement ring in place for the ceremony. The wedding ring had an almost odd-looking curve worked into its top with a small lily made from intricately fitted little diamonds. When it reached the base of her finger, he gave it one more gentle push and the curve of the wedding band fit in a perfect snuggle around the star of her engagement ring. He kept his fingers on it as he continued. "In Eden, heaven and earth met and were one as the stars shine over the lilies of the field, the lilies of the garden." He raised his left hand, sliding its palm under
her hand, then completely covered it with his right. "Together, the lily and the star have become the symbol of unity, where all that has always been and all that is to come are one with all that now is. I give this ring to you, my darling Eden, as a sign of completeness, as a symbol that a

star, however large, however bright, however...conceived of...is but a light alone unless it shines upon a garden. And with this ring I do thee wed, taking you unto me as my wife and the beloved of my heart, acknowledging the oneness that is ours and pledging to do everything in my power to seal that for all eternity."  He moved his top hand away and bent his head to kiss her rings.

Luke managed a smoothly successful transfer of the larger ring to Marshall, and when it, too, had been blessed and passed into Eden's hands, she stood silently a moment, looking at it on

her palm. She'd known the fact of its goldenness would mean little to Marshall, so with Martha's expert help, she'd found a small jewelry shop just down the street from the hospital where a

very elderly jeweler had listened carefully to her explanation, her reasons why she needed
something...tactile...to give her groom. The jeweler had offered to engrave the ring in Braille, but somehow that was not what Eden wanted. He showed her, though, how small engraving of any sort on a ring would be very difficult, if not impossible, to discern clearly by fingertip alone. It was, indeed, he said, why the Braille dots were raised and not indented. She had asked if it were possible for him, then, to emboss something on a ring for her. He had stared at her, his
eyebrows raised so much that his forehead was a roadmap of wrinkles. That was a much more time-consuming matter, much more labor-intensive and required a thicker gold ring to begin with. Did he have such a ring? He did, but it was two sizes larger than she needed and would have to be resized. It had all proven rather complicated, but she was persistent and within two days time he had actually produced what she wanted.

She lifted his left hand, beginning a slow slide of the ring down his finger. "Marshall," she said, then decided she wanted him to be able to touch the ring, so pushed it all the way on and guided his right hand where she wanted it to be, gently pressing his forefinger down atop the band. As he realized what was centrally embossed and smiled, she continued. "For every great change in our lives, there is some catalyst, some something that sets it all in motion. For us it was a single maple leaf cart-wheeling across a sidewalk and then coming to rest as though to be sure it was properly noticed. That simple leaf changed my path and, in so doing, changed everything, bringing me to you, bringing you into my life, leading us to where we stand today. So it occupies the central place on this ring I give you, my love, and is also symbolic of my pledge to you that I will never treat lightly or take for granted the unexpected pathways, the joys and blessings of life. For you are my joy and my blessing, the end and the beginning of all my paths, and the companion with whom I shall walk them."

His fingers moved past the embossed maple leaf, tracing the letters that encircled his ring. ALWAYS was spelled in gold, raised like the leaf. Each letter was very distinct, carefully, painstakingly done to make it easily discernable. "I thought of all the things I might want to put on your ring and many, many words came to mind. But in always I am promising you that always I shall love you and be faithful to you, always I shall be with you no matter how wonderful or how sad the time may be, always I shall give you my loyalty, my trust, my devotion." She ran her own fingertip around the word. "Always, Marshall. Always in all ways

I take you as my wedded husband."

With Eden's left hand resting atop Marshall's, Peter then reached out, laying his right hand over theirs. "Lord, I ask Your seal and Your blessing on the covenant this couple has made before You and in the presence of family and friends. Grant them a special grace whereby each one will prefer the other's good.  May they always be too brave to be unkind. May each one add their courage to the other.   May they always forget what ought to be forgotten, and recall, unfailing, all that ought to be recalled.  Lord, gift them with patience, gentleness, and tender hearts for each other. Grant that each one may not so much seek to be consoled by the other as to console, to be understood as to understand. May each sow joy in the other's sadness, light in the other's darkness, faith in the other's doubt.  Let them not defer or neglect any kindness, any good thing they can do for one another. Give them the gift of finding joy everywhere and leaving it behind them in the hearts of others when they go. In Jesus' name. Amen."

He removed his hand, smiling widely at them. "And now, inasmuch as Marshall and Eden have made their pledge and promise each to the other and have declared the same by the giving and receiving of rings and the joining of hands, by the power invested in me by the state of Pennsylvania, I pronounce that they are husband and wife in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Marshall, you may kiss your bride!"

And he did. Quite tenderly, though very thoroughly. The others in the room cheered and clapped and, completely spontaneously, Martha launched into "Always" on the piano. Marshall grinned at the sound of it and with his arms still around Eden, sang it to her.

"I'll be loving you, always-
With a love that's true, always-
When the things you've planned need a helping hand,
I will understand, always-always.
Days may not be fair, always-
That's when I'll be there, always-
Not for just an hour, not for just a day,
Not for just a year, but always."

Then he buried his lips in her hair, whispering, "Always, my darling. Always."

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