A Cup of Conversation – February 2015

After twenty-five years of marital bliss, I’ve come to understand a great many more things about life, love, and the beautiful reality of imperfection called marriage. Some things can’t be taught in the classroom, only learned on the job. We raise our kids with the best of intentions especially concerning the topic of how to choose a spouse and be a spouse. Unfortunately, the true lessons of marriage are not spoken but modeled every day. How could it be any other way? The good news is children have an amazing capacity to glean wisdom from both the successes and failures of their role models. I’m sure we’re all a little grateful for this merciful design.

The rapids of a digital world deafen us to quieter streams of consciousness so corporate media must pierce deeper and deeper to sell us something. However, some things in life cut through all the noise and give us pause. An ancient proverb speaks to the precious mysteries that greatly amaze and are beyond understanding. One of those is the way a man is with a woman.

In the movie, 27 Dresses, there is a scene where the serial-bridesmaid (Katherine Heigl) and tainted newspaper columnist (James Marsden) are stranded at a small-town tavern when the topic of favorite wedding moments comes up. Both romantic and cynic agree that moment is when the groom turns to look at the bride as she walks down the aisle. The look on his face is the anthology of a thousand lifetimes (that’s my line). In a fraction of a second we see all the hope, expectation, joy, fear, excitement, pleasure, commitment and gratitude of a thousand lifetimes. The tavern shot ends with what is the coolest scene in chick-flick history. Most guys would not know that much less admit it. I’ve come so far…

There is a mystery to the marriage covenant, an immutable spiritual truth of two coming together, body and soul, cleaving to become one whole and indivisible cell. It is a picture of one entity sharing the strongest and weakest of each to overcome a finite number of days to take breath and live well. The marriage cell is seamless. There is no way to divide the cell without extraordinary pain and scarring. We once engineered society to honor higher virtue but it’s more popular today to defend anti-virtue like personal entitlement. We see this now everywhere we look. No one is spared, especially in the religious institutions which promote the sanctity of commitment. Marriage failure rates in the church are as high as everywhere else. That tells us how powerful the undertow currents of this pop culture really are. I’m not preaching but rather listening intently. Marriage is designed to be irresistibly difficult. Marriage teaches patience, forgiveness, commitment, humility, sacrifice and perseverance. Name one other endeavor giving up any of those priceless jewels without a bloody struggle. If virtue is language and aptitude to comprehend all that is good beyond the horizon of the last breath, we may want to rethink a great many things.

Please take heart because, whether it’s the first ‘I do’ or the last, those victorious in the end share one thing in common, they all belong to the venerable fraternity of marriage. I enjoyed the screenwriter’s choice in favorite wedding moment. Mine, however, is decades after the ceremony when bride and groom walk hand in hand fading gently into the periwinkle blue twilight of no regrets.

Happy Valentine’s Day.