I felt it again last night. A somewhat emotional, but enjoyable appreciation for a gathering crowd, appropriate music and yes…ceremony. It is a feeling I can only blame on maturity and one I would never have admitted only two or three years ago. Alex and I went to a Memorial Day celebration and I really enjoyed it.
I explain it this way because for so long my motto was one of cynicism and (what I thought was) cool. I used to scoff at pomp and circumstance. I explained ceremony as humans’ over-emotional involvement to life events that, in the large scheme of things, were meaningless. I took my mantra so far as to skip graduation ceremonies, (including most of my own) birthdays, funerals and weddings.
When Alex and I decided to marry she put her foot down that we would have a white dress, cathedral and cake-wedding with all the music and ceremony that tradition dictates. I begrudgingly took part muttering when asked for opinions something like “Great, what is that going to cost?”
Something happened to me the day of the wedding however. As I stood in tux and tails in England’s oldest cathedral, trumpet voluntary blasting on the organ and my family around me, Alex appeared looking as beautiful as I had ever seen (in a dress I had never seen.) I stood feeling very proud of all of it. I felt love for my family, excitement for my future with Alex and profoundness at the awesomeness of this tradition and ceremony so many before me had also felt. I got it. Now one year later I have another feeling about that day I never expected to feel; nostalgia.
Last night I had a similar experience; Alex and I and a couple from church sat on the lawn of the WWI memorial with 40,000 other middle-American families to celebrate Memorial Day. The weather was beautiful and the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra was there playing American themed music, the last surviving WWI survivor was there to be saluted they even brought in a B-list movie star (Keith David) to read a few patriotic monologues. We celebrated with traditional American food like burgers and fried chicken, corn-on-the-cob and kettle corn. The whole evening was capped off with KC’s largest firework display complete with military cannon salutes all while the orchestra played.
I sat there in my lawn chair watching families of various ethnicities play around me, holding my wife’s hand and really enjoying the weather the music and the show. It hit me again the profoundness of it all. I actually thought in my head how the prayer we all sing and say and probably take for granted has been answered big-time; God really has blessed America. As I felt the emotion and connection to my God, my family and the land I love I couldn’t help but enjoy another thought and say a prayer of thanks; God has blessed me too.
I explain it this way because for so long my motto was one of cynicism and (what I thought was) cool. I used to scoff at pomp and circumstance. I explained ceremony as humans’ over-emotional involvement to life events that, in the large scheme of things, were meaningless. I took my mantra so far as to skip graduation ceremonies, (including most of my own) birthdays, funerals and weddings.
When Alex and I decided to marry she put her foot down that we would have a white dress, cathedral and cake-wedding with all the music and ceremony that tradition dictates. I begrudgingly took part muttering when asked for opinions something like “Great, what is that going to cost?”
Something happened to me the day of the wedding however. As I stood in tux and tails in England’s oldest cathedral, trumpet voluntary blasting on the organ and my family around me, Alex appeared looking as beautiful as I had ever seen (in a dress I had never seen.) I stood feeling very proud of all of it. I felt love for my family, excitement for my future with Alex and profoundness at the awesomeness of this tradition and ceremony so many before me had also felt. I got it. Now one year later I have another feeling about that day I never expected to feel; nostalgia.
Last night I had a similar experience; Alex and I and a couple from church sat on the lawn of the WWI memorial with 40,000 other middle-American families to celebrate Memorial Day. The weather was beautiful and the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra was there playing American themed music, the last surviving WWI survivor was there to be saluted they even brought in a B-list movie star (Keith David) to read a few patriotic monologues. We celebrated with traditional American food like burgers and fried chicken, corn-on-the-cob and kettle corn. The whole evening was capped off with KC’s largest firework display complete with military cannon salutes all while the orchestra played.
I sat there in my lawn chair watching families of various ethnicities play around me, holding my wife’s hand and really enjoying the weather the music and the show. It hit me again the profoundness of it all. I actually thought in my head how the prayer we all sing and say and probably take for granted has been answered big-time; God really has blessed America. As I felt the emotion and connection to my God, my family and the land I love I couldn’t help but enjoy another thought and say a prayer of thanks; God has blessed me too.
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2 comments:
Well said.
Excellent piece of writing.
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