I had a chance to celebrate a wedding this past weekend.
Traditions for weddings have certainly changed over the years, haven’t they? Dancing became a popular part of the wedding celebration in the 1910s. For the first time, phonographs provided background music instead of a string quartet. Wedding guests danced the tango, turkey trot and the hesitation waltz.
There was lots of – gyrations, difficult to call it dancing today – at the reception. Although I kept waiting for the “Chicken Dance,” (I have the legs and beak for the dance craze that became popular in the 1970s), grandmas and grandpas were whooping it up and wiggling it down alongside preschoolers and elementary students on the dance floor. The old dances had given way to the Cupid Shuffle, the Electric Slide and even a make-shift Conga Line. “Dancing with the Stars” did not come calling, but there is something good about seeing family and friends having a really good time.
By the way, according to over thirty DJs the Chicken Dance heads the list of most commonly banned wedding songs that brides do not want to hear on their big day.
Although the ceremony was relatively simple, everyone and their brother had been asked to either be a bridesmaid or a groomsman. The tradition has long been for the bridesmaids to wear matching dresses to support the bride at the processional. It wasn’t to ensure that the bride stood out, which is what most think. The bridesmaids originally wore similar dresses to the bride to confuse her exes and outsmart the evil spirits. An evil spirit – not including Uncle Charlie – wouldn’t know which woman in the group was getting married.
In early Roman times, bridesmaids would line up with the bride to form a protective shield while walking the bride to the groom’s village. The group of women, dressed similarly to the bride, were expected to intervene if any vengeful ex-suitors tried to hurt the bride or steal her dowry.
The couple had a small wedding cake to cut while the rest of us enjoyed famously baked donuts for the dessert. Did you know that it used to be common for the grooms to take a bite of bread at the wedding, crumbling the rest over the bride’s head for good luck? Guests would then scramble around the bride’s feet to pick up the crumbs, again in an attempt to absorb some of the good luck of the special day.
Later the tradition evolved into the bride pushing pieces of her wedding cake through her ring to the eagerly awaiting guests. Those in attendance would take a piece of the cake home to place under their pillows for blessings and fortune that would last the remainder of the year.
Right now I am really fighting the urge to say, “what a crummy thing to do.”
Instead I will remind you that over the past several weeks, we have been looking for ways to take the stress out of the holiday season. We have centered on several practical ways to better manage the hecticness that so often accompanies the end of the year. Here are the thoughts in an easy to remember list.
1) We must remember the faithfulness of God.
2) We must control our minds and our memories.
3) We must read the Scripture.
4) We must strive to be thankful.
Last week we added the fifth suggestion that we must seek moments of peace and silence to reposition our lives before God. We are encouraged to “be still and know that He is God” and there cannot be a better time of year to practice that than during the holidays. Today we add our final suggestion, a lesson learned from the wedding: choose to celebrate!
In every situation, look for reasons to celebrate. The festivities of the wedding – filled with loud music and new traditions – reminded me that it is important to choose to celebrate. A lot of the choice falls on us, doesn’t it? My grandmother would have been fussing about how loud the music was and that you couldn’t hear anyone talk. My grandfather would have made snide remarks that they shouldn’t call those movements dancing. Instead of griping, choose to see the joy people share when they celebrate.
Every year at each Cancer Treatment Center of America, a celebration is held to commemorate a major milestone in the lives of many of their patients – a celebration of the five-year anniversary as a cancer survivor. The five-year survivor is a term doctors and researchers use as a benchmark. According to a tradition that stretches back prior to World War II, the five-year survivor rates were introduced in the 1930s not to point patients toward the notion of a cure, but because cancer specialists back then considered five-year survival as a nearly unattainable goal.
The ceremony, called Celebrate Life includes a festive tree planting in a local park in honor of each survivor. A gold leaf for each survivor, inscribed with his or her name, is attached to the Tree of Life in the hospital’s lobby. Opportunities are given for each survivor to share their personal story of healing and hope.
There is lunch and a formal ceremony followed by Hope Rounds, a time where survivors visit with current patients in treatment to share inspiration, encouragement and hope.
The survivors celebrate a life than continues. The patients celebrate the possibility of a life that is more than a statistic. It is the celebration of life, not the resolution to accept cancer. Do you see the difference?
Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when he talked about abundant life – celebrating life free from the cancerous sin that plagues us all. What an incredible reason to celebrate!
After all, ‘tis the season!