Transcription
July 22, 1955
TO EACH MARRIED COUPLE IN OUR FAMILY
Dear Children:
On July 18, I wrote you about the wedding present Dr Tunks gave to Mame and said that I would send you a copy of it. I wish I had been able to mail you the attached copy on July 18, as that is the date that makes this quotation of particular significance to me. I would like to suggest that each of you file this “Prayer of Husband and Wife” in such a way that you will be reminded to get it out and reread it on each of your own wedding anniversaries. In this way, once a year, you could be reinspired [sic] by this prayer and check with each other on just how well you are living up to it.
As I mentioned in my July 18th letter, I touched on just two points in my short talk to Mame and John at the Rehearsal Dinner. In the second sentence of the prayer, I selected the word “gentleness” and commented on how important that quality is between husband and wife. It is very natural for a bride and groom to have a spirit of gentleness between them on their honeymoon and perhaps during the early years of their married life, but many married couples tend to grow matter-of-fact in later years. That is why it is desirable for each of you to check yourselves once a year to see to it that you are not becoming matter-of-fact and that your flame of love is continuing to shine through your eyes in gentleness and understanding.
Then I connected this spirit of gentleness with the forepart of the next to the last sentence reading: “Teach us to remember the little courtesies”. If, in your relationships with each other, you daily remember the little courtesies, the spirit of gentleness will follow as a matter of course.
In selecting just those two points for my comments, I did not mean that they were the two most important thoughts in the prayer. There are little thoughts and big thoughts in this prayer and I am sure that each of you will find it very meaningful.
You know how I used to use the expression “One man’s happy family”. My hope is that xxxx you not only will be good husbands and wives to each other, but also that you will be good parents and find that your children are a great blessing to you.
Amen
att.Transcriber
Cindi RokeLanguage
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aTranscription
A PRAYER OF HUSBAND AND WIFE
O God, who out of all the world has let us find one
another and learn together the meaning of love, let
us never fail to hold love precious. Let the flame
of it never waver or grow dim, but burn in our hearts
as an unwavering devotion and shine through our eyes
in gentleness and understanding on which no shadow
falls. As the road of life we walk together lengthens,
forbid that the dust of it should ever drift into our
souls. Help us to have the sense to climb high places
of memory and of imagination, so that we may remember
the beauty that lies behind us and believe in the
beauty that lies before. Make us sure that romance
does not depend on time or place, but that daily it
may be renewed in the recognition of those larger
possibilities in one another which love itself creates.
Teach us to remember the little courtesies, to be swift
to speak the grateful and the happy word, to believe
rejoicingly in each other’s best, and to face all life
bravely because we face it with united hearts. So may
whatever spot of earth thou givest to dwell in be as
a garden in which all sweet and lovely things may grow;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.Transcriber
Cindi RokeLanguage
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