Faith Curriculum Library: Tapestry of Faith: Chalice Children: A Program about Our Unitarian Universalist Community for Preschoolers

Leader Resource 1: Wedding Ceremony Readings

From The Same-Sex Wedding Guide: A Resource for Same-Sex Couples and Ministers, by the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Office of Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Concerns, 2004. The quotation in Reading 1 comes from A Book of Pagan Rituals, edited by Herman Slater, 1978.

Reading 1

"Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup."

Will you now each drink to one another, filling each other's cup, as Gibran says, but drinking from your own. Remember that what matters most is not the cup, but the life within it. You can enrich each other's lives, but you must drink from your own. [Pretend to have the bears pour drinks for each other, then drink from their own cups.]

For the spirit is with you,

Now and always.

Reading 2

[Pour drinks for the children, and have them hold their drinks while you read the following.]

As [Bear] and [Bear] have asked us to share their joy, they are also asking us to share the responsibility of a loving community. Will you stand by them, hands open in friendship and support, listening when asked but not directing or giving unwanted advice? Will you, as a community, share this responsibility?

[Have the children respond, "We will."]

Please join me in raising a glass to [Bear] and [Bear]. We wish you a long and joy-filled life together!

[All drink.]