Heaven on Earth

Weddings get much of the attention and most of the money, but marriage holds the potential for wholeness. The mechanics of weddings are somewhat simple and relatively routine, while there is nothing mechanical or simple about marriage. As a matter of fact, it's far easier to get married than it is to get un-married these days. If the two realities were reversed, the numbers of both might diminish proportionately. Really all you need to get married is a bride, a groom (or two brides or two grooms in some states), a marriage license, and someone authorized by the State to ratify the contract. Everything else is adornment, as elaborate or as simple as the bride chooses and the bride's father can afford. But when the euphoria ebbs and the dust of passion settles, the hard work of forging a friendship ensues. I say friendship because physical attraction is fickle, rising and descending with corresponding hormone levels, and romance more frequently than not bows to the press of life; however, friendship transforms marriage into a narrative of mutual grace. Grace is required to navigate both deep waters and shallow shoals. Undeserved adulation makes me better than I am, and I in turn serve more passionately than I was capable of before. Grace extended is divine; grace reciprocated is divinely human. And mutual grace is heaven on earth, which, after all, is what the marriage friendship is intended to be. "It is within the bonds of marriage that I, for one, found a greater freedom to be and to become and to share myself than I can imagine ever having found in any other kind of relationship."(Frederick Buechner)