Seeking Authentic Voice

Thirty-seven years ago today, Mollie Williams can attest to this: the day was a little off kilter. We had the wedding photographer from hell. A photographer far more interested in her photos than she was in the wedding ceremony. A lesson I have never forgotten and always informs the instructions I give to photographers of weddings in which I am the celebrant. 1. Don’t delay the ceremony. 2. Take all the photos you want from where ever you want BUT I never want to be aware of your presence. Don’t let me see you, and don’t get in the way. This is a religious ceremony for which the couple have spent a lot of time preparing for.  Our wedding was delay be nearly 45 minutes because the photographer would not stop taking pictures. Mollie, the officiant, finally came to where we were taking pictures and insisted on starting. I had absolutely no idea of the time. The day was hot and complicated, as wedding days often feel for the couple marrying. But when all was said and done, the cerem...

We left our hotel early this morning and walked about 15 minutes to the Musee d’Orsay. This is a smaller museum but it has a lovely collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings: Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, and many others. We didn’t have tickets, the app kept refusing our credit card for some odd reason (we’ve used it every where else). But getting in was no problem. And we were early enough that the exhibits were not overly crowded, at least at first. I stood in the rooms with paintings from artists I have studied and admired all my life. My eyes welled with tears. I’ve only been this moved a couple of times on this trip: the moment I stood in the ruins of the nunnery garden on Iona, the moment in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London when the priest invited us to sit down and pause for 2 minuets in silence and then he said a few prayers for the world. And then in several rooms at the Musee d’Orsay and the great art that I was present too. I also cried a ...