FaceBook (FB) just reminded me that it is my Wedding Anniversary.
Twenty-nine years ago Josef and I had our legal wedding ceremony in Jacksonville, Oregon. You may think I wouldn’t need FB to remind me of this one-time event. However, our relationship is special.
We were introduced to each other in December 1980 by Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who gave Josef a photograph of me. He was in New York. I was in Melbourne, Australia.
In 1982 we participated in a mass wedding ceremony in Madison Square Garden, New York, together with 2074 other couples. But we didn’t actually start living together as a married couple until 29 April, 1988 when we asked a former Jewish Rabbi, Rev Del Gault, who had become a protestant pastor, to perform our civil wedding ceremony in McCully House, Jacksonville, near Medford, Oregon, where I was doing missionary work for the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, also known as the Unification Church.
Apart from our distinguished pastor, we had a Seventh Day Adventist guest, Mardi, a Unity Church pastor couple, Marc and Helen Buckley, a Christian Spiritualist Association (CSA) pastor couple, Jim and Jean Scott Prugh, a Mormon whose mother was an American Indian, Neil Thomas, my parents and one of my four brothers attend the wedding ceremony.
Of course it was a memorable day. I made a point of going into the park to get photos with my father. He once expressed resentment that I had accepted Reverend Moon as my true parent and totally misunderstood the theological basis of the unification movement. It was important to me to have my parents accept and endorse my marriage. They ended up even being the witnesses on our marriage certificate, since we had totally overlooked the necessity of this minor detail.
Anyhow, thanks FB for reminding me. We actually consider July first 1982 to be our Blessing Anniversary and often celebrate with other couples at that time. But yes, it really is 29 years today.
Thank you Viktor Royer for writing this song for our wedding:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gva4ltzigul8l2p/Gundackers%20Together%20forever.mp3?dl=0