[In ancient Greece, a song by a number of boys and girls at the door of the nuptial chamber was traditionally sung in praise of the bride and the bridegroom. This song was called the Epithalamium]

Robert Fulghum, in his book It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It, tells of a tradition celebrated in the small French town of Puyricard, near Aix-en-Provence, where once a year, on the Feast of Saint John, townsfolk would light a bonfire around which they would dance throughout the night. During the intermission, however, between the music of the guitar, shepherd's flute and concertina, the people would not leave, but instead would stand gazing into the fire.

Suddenly, Fulghum writes, a young man and woman, holding each other tightly by the hand, ran and leaped high in the air throug the fierce flames, landing safely just beyond the edge of the coals. As the crowd applauded, the two embraced and walked away, wearing expressions of fearful joy, having tempted the fates and emerged unscathed to dance once more.

It was the leaping through the fire, Fulghum writes, that was at the heart of the Feast of Saint John.

“It worked this way,” he explains. “If you were lovers, married or not, or if you were just friends, even, and you wanted to seal your covenant, you made a wish together that you would never part, and then you rushed the fire and jumped over while holding hands. It was said that the hotter the fire and the higher the flames, the longer and closer would be the companionship. But it was also said that if you misjudged the fire and got singed or came down in the coals on the other side or lost your grip on one another while jumping, then evil would come to you and your bond.”

* * *

I watched an old friend take this leap last 2 July 2006, when he married his girlfriend of four years', at the Fernwood Gardens in Tandang Sora. For those of us who've known the groom for quite some time, even the idea of his having a girlfriend was quite a novelty. You see, David has always been the uncomplicated and wholesome one among us, the quiet, level-headed, serene character who always seemed to have a smile on his face and a dream in his heart. He was a quiet idealist, passionate yet unobstrusive. He remided us of the Little Prince.

So that when we learned that he had found a girlfriend, many of us knew that he was playing for keeps. It was probably the only way David knew how to love. And so from us who watched him from the sidelines (that is to say, heard about him and his girlfriend during Christmas parties or birthday celebrations), we realized that how he was as a person was exactly how he was as a boyfriend: uncomplicated, wholesome, considerate, passionate. It was a joy hearing about them.

What we did not quite understand about the couple, however, was during the time that they had been together, they had become really, really good friends.

It appears to me (and not that I am an authority in this: far from it, I think my track record speaks for itself) that the key to any good marriage is that the boy and the girl must first be good friends. It is the bedrock upon which any solid marital relationship is to be founded. This requirement may seem self-evident and obvious to many of us, and yet it is an ideal that very few people get to achieve.

Indeed, as Kent Nerburn observed, “The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each others laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept up into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.”

I think the reason why Dave and Anna project such a wonderful aura together is because they have genuinely found in each other a best friend, a partner, a soulmate, even, for those romantics among us who still believe. More than the physical attraction and the comfortable presence brought about by proximity and time, I can sense a genuine sharing and intersection of life-goals and missions. Not just mere toleration or acceptance, but a shared common purpose: love is not looking at each other; it's looking at the same direction.

(David and Anna, of course, are flying to Canada by the middle of this month to pursue graduate studies together at Rotman College at the University of Toronto. They intend to live there for five years, as both of them try to learn “how to change the world.”)

But together with this friendship, I think that what I like best about the couple is the innocence by which they have carried their relationship. It is, I think, vintage David: a person who is (and hopefully will be) uncomplicated, unsullied by the disillusionments of the world. He really had nothing to prove, and thus had nothing to prove to Anna. He really had no baggage to carry, and thus had no baggage to deposit at her feet. He really was genuinely satisfied with his life, and thus had no issues to give to Anna to solve. I tried to explain this once, how David could go on with life so placidly and comfortably, and I came to one conclusion: David knows that he is securely loved.

One need only look at his mother, teary-eyed as he was reciting his vows, and you'd know that this is absolutely true.

* * *

And the leaping continued on through the night, where the young of heart and the fleet of foot took their chance before the fire. As the evening grew darker and the fire burned lower, the more cautious made their move. Some did not clear the fire; some jumped too soon and some too late and some ran to the fire only to stop short, and some broke their grip, with one partner jumping while the other held back at the last moment.

At evening's end, however, when only glowing coals remained, there was played a traditional tune signaling a last dance. As the final note of the shepherd's flute faded, the villager encircled the soft glow of the embers and fell silent. the village couple married longest caught hands, and gracefully, solemnly, stepped together over what was once fire. At that signal of benediction, the villagers embraced and walked off into the starry, starry night toward home, and all the fires of love ever after. . . .

I end with a poem by John Gardiner Calkins Brainard, which I think best captures my wishes for Dave and Anna:

I SAW two clouds at morning,
Tinged with the rising sun,
And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one:
I thought that morning cloud was blest,
It moved so sweetly to the west.

I saw two summer currents
Flow smoothly to their meeting,
And join their course, with silent force,
In peace each other greeting:
Calm was their course through banks of green,
While dimpling eddies played between.

Such be your gentle motion,
Till life’s last pulse shall beat;
Like summer’s beam, and summer’s stream,
Float on, in joy, to meet
A calmer sea, where storms shall cease—
A purer sky, where all is peace.

May they walk off from the many challenges of their shared life intact into the starry, starry night, toward home, and all the fires of love ever after. . . .