The Work of the Heart

Keynote address to the NYC Celebrant Chapter's Inaugural Meeting
(modified for presentation here)

I love being a Celebrant. It is said that every institution is a shadow of its founder. This particular organization has been and will be a wonderful thing that brings joy and meaning to people’s lives because that is who our founder is.

Six years ago Cindy, saw an ad in the Montclair Times for people with a background in the humanities who wanted a rewarding vocation giving other people the ceremonies they desire. She brought it to work and changed my life. I knew instantly that this idea would work. In a place as diverse as New York City I knew that people would need Celebrant services. I had no idea that I needed this work -- that being a Celebrant would touch me so deeply and make me a better person.

Some people wonder why I would give up practicing law to become a Celebrant. If you know me you know that I have always had a passion for social justice. I did a lot of good work before I became a Celebrant.

But Celebrancy, is the work I was born to do. That is because this work touches people in ways that protests and civil rights laws never could. Celebrancy is extraordinary. It opens peoples hearts. It helps everyone to see that our differences are not to be feared. I perform mostly weddings. Most of the couples I marry are not religious. However, their guests usually are and they are used to religious ceremonies. They are taking a risk by attending something new. Often at least one parent believes very strongly that the couple should be married in a church or at least by a man. I will never forget the Italian-American patriarch, who the bride warned me about. After the ceremony, I saw him approaching me and I braced myself. He looked me in the eyes and told me that he thinks that is the best wedding he has ever attended.

I believe that is because the bride, groom and I created a ceremony that touched on universal values – the love that the bride and groom shared; their happiness to have their friends and family there with them; and their hopes for the future.

Another important thing that we do as Celebrants is we work toward connecting to our listeners. When I am speaking I imagine red velvet cords of connectivity going from my heart to the listeners. I try to always look at everyone with love in my heart. We honor people with our gaze -- With our deep listening -- With our respect and attention -- With the care we take in choosing our words and tone of our voices. This means so much because we all are touched by another’s attention, validation and sharing. The essence of each human being is we are the same: We grieve. We hope. We love. We need each other to feel fully human. We tell each other stories in order to survive.

In addition to giving us an understanding of who we really are, Celebrancy provides a better understanding of what the world is really like -- An understanding that is not affirmed in popular culture. Television, the most dominant force in popular culture, is preoccupied by so-called reality shows that ridicule and demean people and shows that focus on crime and murder. The nightly newscasts focus on what is wrong with our communities and the world. This is not most people’s reality. Most people are good, honest and loving.

Celebrant’s show us the real “real world.” We gather people together to celebrate life. The most touching ceremony I ever performed was a funeral that would not have happened if Celebrants did not exist. The deceased was an atheist and to respect his wishes his family would have simply put him in the ground. However, they found us and together we crafted a beautiful ceremony that acknowledged his gruff, hard-working, family-loving, poker playing ways and finally imagined him at the great poker game in the sky. That is reality. That is what we get to embrace at a Celebrant ceremony. We see people honoring each other for who they are -- The easy parts of the personality and sometimes the difficult parts of the personality. We see people choosing each other. This is what we need. This is what the ancient stories taught our ancestors. Life is not really about crime, ridicule or political maneuvering. Life is about valuing life, family and community. This is what we do.

Being a Celebrant has been so wonderful to me and for me because it encourages me to focus, to hone in on what it means to be human and to sprinkle these good feelings like Johnny Appleseed, like our icons. It reinforces for me that this business of being alive is a wonderful and meaningful thing. I’ll never forget the bride who had been turned down by so many ministers before she found me that when I said, “Yes, I will perform your ceremony” she burst into tears. Or the guest who, after attending a destination wedding in Central Park, grabbed my arms and asked me, “Where did you learn this?!”

It is said that if you come from the heart, the heart will hear. If you come from the intellect, the intellect will hear. If you come from the truth, the truth will be stirred up in us and we will move closer. To live in the truth, is to live the essence of life. I submit to you that is the gift that we as Celebrants offer the world.

We are very fortunate to be Celebrants in this time in human history because, the world is ready for us now. We really are a global community. We see the bad things going on and we see the good. We know that we need the security of home, of family and friends because tomorrow is not promised. We know not the false security of the past but the truth of today which includes the bad and the good, things that we agree with and things that we don’t. Most importantly, today we have room in our hearts for everyone

Celebrants do the work of the heart. We encourage people to operate from their hearts. We enrich these all to rare opportunities for meaningful social contact. This kind of exchange helps individuals, families, and communities heal and grow.

After one ceremony I remember one guest came up to me with her eyes shining saying, “my heart chakra is spinning.” I knew I performed a good ceremony because I touched her. If you put your heart, your intellect and the universal truths into your ceremonies, the universe will respond in kind and you will not be able to measure your rewards.

The mystic Andrew Harvey says, “If you are really listening, if you are awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold ever more wonders.” Let us all go forward facilitating experiences for our clients, our families, our communities and ourselves that will cause our hearts to burst open with more and more wonders.

Thank you.