Leila and Colin: Everyone from Everywhere

Leila and Colin’s October 20, 2017 wedding is typical of many of our events, in that so many of their guests came from so many different places.  Colin’s family was from Ireland and Leila’s extended family was Palestinian.  Colin and Leila met while they were working with refugees in Nablus.  Also, like so many of our couples, they spend a good bit of their time working to advance their educations.  Leila speaks fluent French and Arabic and works for a global health organization and Colin is working on his Ph.D. in International Relations with a specialty in Arabic and Islam.  I had the feeling while I was speaking with them both that I was talking to a couple who stands a good chance of having one or both of them to become our President of the United States one day.  They gave me hope for the future of our world.  When they described each other, they talked about generosity, humility.  Their relationship has already thrived through long distances such as Cambodia and Bulgaria and Palestine and Durham, NC. and they plan on remaining nomadic for a bit longer.  They enjoy hiking and cooking together.

Their wedding was a bit different in that they both spent time, just before the ceremony, together, at a cocktail party for their guests and then they walked in to the ceremony together.  They share so many of the same interests yet both respect each other’s independence.  A quote from Khalil Gibran which I shared at their ceremony summed up their loving quite beautifully:

Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

~The Prophet