#MonthOfMinistry Day 3
A couple came to me for a wedding ceremony recently, and I asked the what vows or promises they wanted to make to each other. “No vows!” they said, and I was momentarily at a loss. What, after all, makes a wedding ceremony if it’s not the chance to tell your partner how you mean to be in relationship to them, to make a speech act that changes something about that relationship?
Fine of course, and there are other ways of framing this: perhaps they can make some gratitude statements, express how they love and appreciate each other, what makes their relationship meaningful and important, and what their wishes and intentions are for the future.
It’s clear that many folk are wary of vows, perhaps because they fear they are going to be somehow trapped by them, or fail in some way if they “break” the vow.
I think it’s helpful to see a vow in a different way: not a loss of freedom or a promise that we might fail to live up to, but a way of setting a clear structured intention. To help focus that intention, we can do that in a ritual or cermonial seeting, with symbolic actions like exchanging rings. In a wedding ceremony I often introduce the section where the couple speak their promises with some words like these: “Remember that these are not chains to bind you, but guides and reminders to help you in the adventures to come.”
A vows is an active committent, a turning towards something. Here is Ruth (from the story in the Old Testament) expressing her comittment to Naomi:
Ruth said, “Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! for wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you die I will die, and there be buried. May the Lord do so and so to me, and more besides, if aught but death separates me from you!”
Ruth 1:16-17
Buddhist practioners traditionally use vows or precepts and Thich Nhat Hahn has (very helpfully, I think) renamed these as “Mindfulness Trainings”, emphasising that these are tools to aid us:
The Five Mindfulness Trainings are one of the most concrete ways to practice mindfulness. They are nonsectarian, and their nature is universal. They are true practices of compassion and understanding.
You can read the Mindfulness Trainings here.