Made To Measure
Some things it isn’t wise to get used to. Saying goodnight to a loved one. Having children at your feet. Breathing. Rising in the morning of your own accord, and dressing.
And having books appear in the world with your elbow grease on them.
This soon to appear blue-bound venture is my seventh go at book making. This time there was duress in the wings, heartache in the house. I had to buckle up.
But good God, what a privilege it is to take the measure of things – to have the time to do that! – and then to invite citizens of these strange days to pour over the proceedings with you.
My wish: Not that you’d ‘see yourself’ in my Matrimony book. Assent has not been something I gambled on, any time out.
Instead: That you’d see me bearing you and your kin in mind.
Matrimony: Ritual, Culture and the Heart’s Work is me trued and tattooed by life. It’s an old man’s steady eye on the act of redemption – genuine restoration – that is there in the soul rising inexplicably again for the sake of a better day. The book is me laying out what I learned in the trenches of culture work. It’s me in fierce regalia, this time grown tender hearted somehow, for the sake of the young.
What I did for dying and the dead, for aging and the aged, for money and the soul, for the quarantined and the querulous, I now do for romance and vows and the radical hospitality of betrothal. This is my case for Old Order Matrimony.
And this is my hand-tooled, cursive invitation to you to join me there.
Stephen Jenkinson
Founder of Orphan Wisdom
Get your copy of: Matrimony: Ritual, Culture and the Heart’s Work
