The Toast 2-17-2019

It was at your wedding, and you and the guests were standing around at the reception, having a good time. And the best man signaled for everyone to be quiet for the toast. Everyone raised their glasses. The best man smiled at you and began:
To you. He said. I hope you are always wealthy, wanting for nothing. I hope you are always full, feeling no emptiness inside. I hope you will laugh and laugh and never know tears. I hope that always people will speak well of you.
Hear, hear. Everyone shouted, and clinked their glasses.
And then someone else went to the microphone there at the head table. Someone who perhaps had not been invited. Dressed in the simple plain homespun robe of the lower class, he looked out of place among all the suits and ties and Sunday dresses.
Clearing his voice, motioning for silence, he raised a glass and began his toast. Looking deep into your eyes, he began: And I have a toast to make. I can say with certainty, that I love you more than anyone here. In fact, I love you more than everyone here put together. And here are my hopes.
I hope you are poor at times. Your poverty might lead you to search me out, and in me you have a form of wealth greater than any king.
I hope you feel empty inside sometimes. People always full get complacent, lazy, closed.
I hope that you cry sometimes. Nothing is more superficial than a person who won’t let the sorrow of others and his or her own pain come close enough to reach their heart.
Lastly, I hope you live your life so honestly and so sincerely and so close to me that people are mystified by you and speak ill of you. An easy conformity to the world does no one any good, especially you.
And then this guest, still smiling intently at you, drank his glass, emptied it with so much gusto you’d have thought he was drinking in the Kingdom of God.
Very strange good wishes – from a very special friend.

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