I recently visited the golden hills of California to witness the marriage ceremony of one of my best buddies from college, Caleb Avraham. This took place in Sacramento, the capitol building of which is skirted by several lovely orange trees. Why I remember this detail is beyond me (but, man, those oranges were good…)
Caleb is only the second Muslim friend of mine who has invited me to his wedding. In both cases, I enjoyed the affair a whole lot more than your average non-Muslim wedding. Why? I guess partly it’s the novelty of the experience, but, more specifically, I think it’s the mixture of piety and playfullness interwoven through the ceremony, matched only by some of the coolest Christian weddings I’ve attended. The three most memorable aspects of the process–and by process, I mean three day’s worth of marriage–are the following:
On the first evening of the wedding, the nikah, Caleb had to barter with the best friends of his soon-to-be wife, Sarah, for her bride price. The money ultimately went to charity, but that only seemed to stoke the passion of the exchange. Briefly put, Caleb had set aside a sum of money, and if he couldn’t succeed in talking down Sarah’s cohort, all of the dudes in his cohort, including yours truly, had to cough up the rest. Fortunately, our cohort involved a couple people with some business experience; adding that to my fantastic entrepreneurial skills, and we only wound up $5 a piece short of our limit starting from a sum of a few thousand dollars. (Of course, just before that, Caleb had to dig a nickle out of pie while three virgins smacked his plucking hand with sticks, but that’s a different story.)
Contrast this with the lesson the Imam communicated mid-way through the second day regarding marriage as automatic fulfillment of half of one’s duty in serving God. Why? Because the purpose of marriage is ultimately to be a support to one’s spouse in that process. Or consider Caleb’s reflections on the third day of the marriage, where he described the wife for whom he had always dreamed (wanderlust philosopher) with the one he received, as it were from God’s hand (compassionate, diligent, and visionary). One of my friends from Mahattan, Joshua, told me a while back about how he often reminded himself when the going got rough during his pursuit of a career in stage theater of the fact that he was realizing the ambitions of half the theatrical types in the world; each day, despite the difficulty, was scattered with moments of significance and beauty. I guess that’s the bit about Caleb and Sarah’s wedding that I’ll remember, first and foremost.
The second part of the wedding didn’t start until 8:30pm on the day following the first, and the third didn’t start until the afternoon of the following day. So, that meant that Caleb and the boys had plenty of opportunities to catch up along the way. It’s stuff like this that gives me the motivation beyond sheer brotherly fidelty to drag myself all the way across the country for these things. Now, if you take a look at the group of my best friends from college, there’s really very little that matches up: Two lapsed Catholics, two Muslims, and a Jewish Christian from four different continents with just as many first languages. Seriously, what are the odds? Desmond, Łukasz, and I speculated on the cause of this phenomenon over some single malt and a couple Cubans just before we all hit our separate roads back home, and I suggested the following explanation.
It’s largely the differences that have helped keep us together. Sure, the core is very similar, e.g. comittment to a process of personal growth, an adventurous but very loyal spirit, an open mind to new ideas and new experiences with a solid sense of one’s own convictions, and so forth. But this meant that the people we would naturally seek out and stay friends with over the long haul had to be significantly different; the friendships themselves had to be something of an adventure. We tended towards brothers from another mother–the more distant the mother, the better.
I think a lot of people miss out on this. Łuke likes to call them “walking zombies” because it’s as if they have already forfeited real life for mere existence without significant challenge. When I compare the relationship I have with these gents versus the slew I attempted to develop in seminary, there’s really no comparison. Despite the fact that I just spent three of the most personally formative years of my life with those people, they’re far too similar to me to warrant the sort of extended friendship I enjoy and for which I will sacrifice with these college buddies.
I guess I’ll wrap up with something a bit more goofy that nevertheless remains close to my heart. I love to dance, and the night after the second part of the wedding ceremony, I hit club Avalon just a few blocks north of the capitol. My bros watched folk bop on the v.i.p. platform whilst nursing a couple Long Islands; I danced for two hours solid. Met a few folks at random, was ignored by several dozen more, but there’s something about dropping a windmill on the middle of a dance floor that changes the conversation. Best thing about the club: two rooms, one spinning hip hop and the other salsa; worst thing: kinda sketchy. Don’t think I’ll ever make it back to the joint, but at least I left an impression when I walked.
B-boys represent!
