Anniversary

A war is raging in this country over the meaning of “marriage.” While our nation struggles to define it, I rejoice over the honor of being husband to the most wonderful woman in the world. To be honest, I've not always been so positive about marriage in general, and confess that my wife has everything to do with my revised view of wedded bliss. Today is our wedding anniversary and we will enjoy an evening out together as most husbands and wives do annually, but my heart-celebration is not confined to one day a year. Daily I'm humbled by our common life, and the uncommon love I receive from the tender woman who chooses to share her life with me. The fact that Jo Beth said "I do" all those years ago can only be chalked up to temporary insanity, but may the madness continue a lifetime and beyond. 

My own good fortune reminds of something G.K. Chesterton wrote some time ago:

"Very few people ever state properly the strong argument in favor of marrying for love or against marrying for money. The argument is not that all lovers are heroes and heroines, nor is it that all dukes are profligates or all millionaires cads. The argument is this, that the differences between a man and a woman are at the best so obstinate and exasperating that they practically cannot be got over unless there is an atmosphere of exaggerated tenderness and mutual interest. To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot. Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of 'Beauty and the Beast'" ("The Common Man"). 

My wife and I are still in the story, and never want it to end. No doubt I caught her in a weak moment, but I'll never let her go.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Genesis 2:21-24, KJV)

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)

Adam and Eve

At some point after they lost their place, Eve discovered that loving is both the hardest and the easiest thing you'll ever do. Probably a little later (guys always get it a little later), Adam realized that being loved is the greatest freedom as well as the most profound responsibility you'll ever own. In the cool of the day sometime after the fall, they understood love as they remembered what it was like to walk in intimacy with a God who loved them deeply. The longing they knew down deep in return awakened something within for each other. This might no longer be paradise, but it could be Heaven on earth.  What made it so was not the absence of sweat and tears, but the presence of each other. Great pain awaited them as it always does if we live long enough, but the hurt along the way could never overshadow what they gained from walking through it with someone who fully understood and shared the consequences of it. And in their oneness, they reflected not only one another but God himself.