Thoughts on Love and Marriage

 

It didn’t happen all at once, like in the fairy tales. By it, I mean love. Not what people think of when they think ‘love.’ Not the love that flutters the heart and weakens the knees. The love grew over time when the caught breath and hormonal impulses had found their proper place, behind the choice and mature yielding of the soul to another. 

The man loved his woman until it ached. He got up each day, though weary and less than thrilled with his daily labours, and set out to win the bread for the home, wife, and children. The job was interesting on some level. It suited his gifts, a luxury to be sure. In the early days he had resented having to work. How much he’d rather fill his life with more meaning, more purpose, more self-pursuits. But he loved his woman, his family. He needed to serve their needs before his whims. He dedicated himself to providing, and it was his privilege to do so. 

He might have pursued a perfect life, where every endeavour was perfectly suited to his yearning. Where every member of his tribe sought his ideals, for themselves, for him. He would not mind being a small king in a small kingdom of loyal subjects whose aim was to please their noble lord. But this had not been his calling - to establish his own kingdom. He was called to serve and sacrifice and love deeply. This was more noble than all lesser callings. 

The love had been fireworks at first, only to fizzle and burn when the love object turned out to have a mind of her own. That was unexpected! From the embers of the dregs and ashes of fireworks a smouldering death seemed to unfold. Until there seemed to be nothing left - not even an ash heap to build upon. The cold, weak tea had had every last drop of richness soaked out of it. Self had reigned in both of them and he had crushed her soul. She, too, had withered and left his inner child out in the cold to suffer loneliness and want. They could not be true companions with so much loss and grief. They lost a dream, a hope, and the warmth of a trusted friend. Their love was fickle.

Until it wasn’t. Death can only sit so long on the cold hearth of those who long to love. If only to give love away, because the seeking of love cannot be demanded. It must be received from a surprised place - a place of longing, for sure, but a place of humility, of gratitude. 

To find your life you must lose it. To gain the world and lose your soul is no good. He had wanted so much for himself. But he learned to lose his life. To serve and sacrifice and give, until there wasn’t much left, if anything at all. All energy spent, given to earning, serving, helping. This was what it meant for love to grow. All the deadness of conflict and striving for self-honour - all this had to be left on the ash heap. The sorrow and ache to be known, seen, loved, had to be placed into the Lover’s hands. He had to be trusted to pour the warm oil of grace, that sanctifying, priestly anointing oil - over the grief of not getting what I want from life. 

He was growing old. Wise. Through service and grace. Through sacrifice and self-denial. Life wasn’t about him. Though the wish might have lingered that it would be nice if life were, in fact, about him. But it wasn’t, and he accepted this as from the Lord. There was wisdom in this acceptance. More than that, the wisdom came from the doing - the putting of one foot in front of the other, heading out to work, heading out to the hardware store, just one more time. To find the fitting for the pipe, the glue for the repair, the wood for the project. All these were necessary to fulfill the call to love. And that is how love grew. It grew in decades, more than in warm kisses. It grew in yielding rather than receiving. “Oh Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand. To be loved as to love!” His heart began to echo with the great prayer of St. Francis. 

These two, they looked about them and saw those seeking for love. Those who wanted the joys of marriage, of a warm infant to fill their arms. They saw those wanting to receive the loving gaze, the deep interest, the insatiable curiosity of another. They saw what a young girl wants - to be seen and known and loved and cherished. They saw what a young boy wants: to be admired, approved, esteemed, honoured. They saw these in others and they remembered. And they granted that it isn’t always the girl who wants cherishing or the boy who wants admiration. Truth be told, a girl wanted a boy’s admiration also. The boy wanted to be cherished by a girl as well. There is a young boy and girl in every gender, they came to understand. Cherishing and honour were not partial to boy-ness or girl-ness. 

Yes, they saw this in young adults, but still called them boys and girls, though a matured body makes them young men and women. Through their eyes, their ideas of love were matched with boy-ness and girl-ness. And so they thought of them as boys and girls when it came to love.

These young people were not thinking what sacrifice might be involved to love well. They were lonely. They wanted a friend. They wanted a partner - a soul-mate to share all of life with. They had no clue about what surviving might look like, when stresses of life require all hands on deck, and all efforts to forestall violence, harm, or death are required from both partners. They didn’t consider, or realize that love is not about being loved as much as it is about the doing of practical things, like changing diapers, cooking a meal, or washing dishes and clothes. 

They thought love was sharing deep thoughts. Baring one’s soul to another. Being heard. Being seen. It was these things on some level. But there were times when in baring one’s soul, the partner fell asleep from overwork. That too was a kind of love, though it felt insulting at the time. He had worked to exhaustion from love, rather than listen to her poetic notions. Though her soul might have been bruised for lack of emotive attention, there was at least food on the table to feed her family. For these she was grateful.

He had learned to love her even through the frailness of her body. She had rounded through the years, bearing his children, and serving hearty meals. Her body being the throne of her heart deserved all the honour and esteem he could give. Her heart was large, and so was the couch it sat upon, and he learned to bless all of it. Love could not keep him from seeing the treasure beneath the surface. Her body became more beautiful to him over the years. As she softened, so did his gaze. This was what it meant to love: to welcome all of her, and no longer see flaws, but see grace in every angle of her being. She had taught him what is was to be human. To be open to imperfection, and find the beauty there. To open yourself to grace. Love cannot grow in graceless soil. For it creates grace wherever its roots touch. Lifeless soil becomes fertile with the reach of each tendril of love. 

So they spoke to those young ones and told them what it is to love. The blank stares and confused looks that greeted them were telling. “You mean it isn’t about chemistry?” they would ask. And the seasoned couple would shake their heads. They could not convince those boys and girls that love was not about the sparks that fly. It was not about receiving and feeling fulfilled and connected and joyful at every moment. Love might come in those ways at times, and if so, it was welcomed with joy and gladness. But it seemed the way of love had twists and turns and the river could be turbulent at times. The course of love meant one must ride it wherever it led, and even get splashed with cold water at times and be jolted awake through these unpleasant sensations. Love might get you wet, and it might require you to expend yourself scooping water out of your boat so you can stay afloat. 

The young people didn’t seem to understand what might be ahead of them. They wanted a smooth path, and one that would feel good. Love often didn’t feel very good. It felt like sleepless nights with a sickly child, or like cleaning up vomit with the last clean towel. It felt like holding a hand in a hospital, and singing a lullaby to a restless child. It felt like chopping onions and wiping sweat off on a sleeve while pulling the rake through one last pile of leaves. Love felt like getting up early to fry an egg and pack a lunch. Love didn’t often feel warm and cozy and romantic, curled up with a cup of tea before a crackling fire. 

Let there be no illusion: love is tough and tiresome and wholesome, refreshing, and good. It is back-breaking, exhausting, sorrow-filled, and mundane at times. Perhaps that’s why Paul the Apostle starts his treatise on love with these three words: Love is Patient.

And so the couple found themselves wondering about love. It isn’t what we thought it would be. It is so much worse, and so much better. And over time they came to see it was something to be learned again and again, as the soul shrank back from the suffering and pain to come, the will to love invited courage to stand again and love again - the one that had been chosen, the one I committed to love - I will again choose to love him. I will choose to love her. Even though it cost all I have, I will love. A will to love is at the heart, the deepest part of each of us - it is essential, if we are to love at all.