“Beauty in Our Eyes” – The Story Behind the Song

How did this song come to be? 

Hit play below to start listening, and read on for the story of its inception and creation – 

Sam and Tessa Hayashida are some of the most deeply good people I’ve ever known. And I’ve been lucky enough to be Sam’s close friend for a long time, so it was no surprise that he asked me to play music as a member of their wedding party. 

But this was no ordinary wedding. 

They asked all of their wedding party to bring themselves fully to the wedding and create a place of welcome and warmth for their guests. So for me that meant writing a song — they asked if I would write something she could walk down the aisle to, and that they could have their first dance to. Something that would set the tone for the wedding, and weave together the feelings they wanted their guests to experience.

So we hopped on a phone call, and they told me their love story from start to finish.

They told me about how they were friends for years before even considering dating each other — they shared several classes, in which he was nicknamed “Socrates”. Their friendship developed in part because they shared a passion for meaningful friendships and singleness in the Church; they were both very committed to intentional friendship and creating community that allowed single people to thrive.

And in time, together with a few other similar-minded friends, they did build these communities.

Communities in which many who felt outcast and alone were made to be the most important and valued members of the community, and in which all shared with all freely as each had need. Both Sam and Tessa (separately) believed they had a calling to surrender the idea of marriage and offer their lives to service of the most marginalized and oppressed peoples. They carried the pain of those around them, and gave all that they had to make others feel at home. They each wept and mourned alongside the pain of others, and joined in their rejoicing and celebration.

All the while Sam believed his true home to be Hartford, Connecticut — where he was from — and he had a plan to build another community like this back home. And as he prepared to leave California he told most of his friends from college that he would be prioritizing the friendships present to him… that he didn’t believe in truly maintaining long distance friendships. This was also a method of trying to get as many friends as possible to move to Hartford with him.

Tessa was the one who knocked some sense into him — she pushed back hard on that idea and convinced him that it was worthwhile to call his closest friends and keep meaningful friendships alive. What neither of them expected after he moved away was for their friendship to deepen… and turn into a relationship.

It all started with a poem.

A poem he didn’t intend to write, but which tumbled out of him on the drive to Hartford. In short it said “I have everything I always thought I wanted here, but it feels empty because you’re not here”. He sent it to her in an email, not even realizing it was romantic.

And that’s how it started. They began calling for hours and hours most days, and on these calls would frequently ask each other “describe the beauty in front of your eyes right now”. For him it was often sunsets, for her it was usually two beautiful trees that she lay under on the grass, trees that over the course of their dating relationship grew together and touched above her.

Of course their relationship, and their wedding, and their marriage, was built on the same values that their friendship was formed around — intentional friendship beyond the marriage, care of the marginalized together, generosity as partners, self-sacrificial love toward one another and the people around them… everything they believed to be the way of Jesus.

They each allowed the seed of desire for marriage to die, and so their marriage has become a became a warm and welcoming tree for all in need of a home.

Enjoy Sam and Tessa Hayashida’s wedding song, “Beauty in Our Eyes”
(lyrics below)

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Lyrics