[The following blog was originally written as a column in the Santa Margarita Community Church Communique on the occasion of Sharon and my twentieth wedding anniversary. On June 8 Sharon and I will have doubled that number to forty. I have done some minor edits, but this blog is essentially the same as it was twenty years ago except the number is now forty instead of twenty and my amazement at the mystery of marriage has grown exponentially. My feelings about, understanding of and appreciation for marriage (and Sharon) are the same, only more so.]
Forty years ago this month a young man with long sideburns, wire-rimmed glasses and “flared” slacks stood next to a long-haired young woman holding a strawflower bouquet and made a promise to her that he fully intended to keep. His bride also made a promise that she fully intended to keep. The fear they felt was not only stage fright, it was also the audaciousness of the promise about to be made. The promise contained four crucial commitments.
The promise contained a comprehensive commitment. It was not some vague promise, but an inclusive, far-reaching promise. It included not only our worth and goodness, it also included our weakness and sin. It encompassed every aspect of who we were and who we would become. It meant that everything of our individual lives was now blended into one life. The mystery of two, yet one, resulting in a pulling together in the same direction. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
The promise contained a commitment with no conditions. If conditions had been introduced into those promises, it would have been bound by time and circumstances. “I do” is temporal. It is limited to the moment. “I will” is a statement without conditions and with no expiration date. “I do” has an unspoken “so long as” clause attached. So long as what? So long as he is faithful to her? So long as she doesn’t find a better relationship? So long as we both get all our needs met by the other? No relationship can stand the weight of these conditions. By its very nature this promise had to be without conditions if the relationship was ever to be the safe place that would allow for growth as individuals and as a couple.
The promise contained a commitment of faith. We had little idea who it was we were marrying or what we would be in six months, to say nothing of forty years. The English poet, Samuel Rogers wrote, “It does not much matter whom one marries as one is sure to find the next morning it is someone else.” Without faith in the promise, fear creeps in and whispers that the relationship was built on someone we were then, not who we are now. Without guile we told ourselves (and each other) that we were different people than we actually were. We put our best selves forward. Now that our real selves have been revealed over the years, our real selves continue to remain faithful to the promise.
The promise contained a commitment to forgiveness. Without this we would lack the most important tool for facing and healing the troubles that marriage would create between us. We had no idea then what those troubles would be. We have a much clearer idea now. Nothing we brought to the marriage—feelings of love, good intentions, skill in communication—could heal hurts like forgiveness. Forgiveness is the only tool that honestly names the hurt and provides the ability to heal. It takes time. It takes grace. It takes the experience of God’s forgiveness.
The marriage promise was, and still is, the most important promise anyone can make. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, “No one can promise to go on feeling a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry.” When that young couple made those promises, it wasn’t a promise to feel, it was a promise to be. Through all the good times and all the difficult times this promise has held us together. The promise didn't guarantee a successful marriage, but it create the rich soil in which the marriage might grow. And it did.
I once wrote (and maybe borrowed from some uncredited author), “Long after the bouquets have dried and crumbled and the photo album has yellowed with age, this promise will be alive and well.” It was true then. It is true now. If I had it to do all over again…I would.
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