For Better or Worse

I recently found a copy of my wedding vows while cleaning our bookshelf.  We didn't want to use the traditional vows, vows I recently learned were written by Thomas Cranmer in 1549.  So we spent an afternoon looking through marriage books until we discovered words that fit the marriage we wanted to have.  And we pledged:

I take you to be my spouse, and these things I promise you...

I will be faithful to you and honest with you; 

I will respect, trust, help, and care for you;

I will share my life with you; 

I will forgive you as we have been forgiven;

And I will try with you to better understand ourselves, the world, and God;

Through the best and worst of what is to come as long as we live.

I like the vows we chose, maybe even more now than the day we first read them huddled together at a table in the bookstore.  At the time, it sounded like the kind of marriage I wanted to have, a life that was shared, open minds exploring the world together, with honesty, respect, and trust as the foundation.  But I didn't really know how to live the vows, or how much they would be put to the test.

I didn't know what the best would be, that in marriage the best is the absolute BEST that life has to offer.  I didn't know what it would be like inside that union of two lives.  When marriage is good, it surpasses anything else in the world.  It is better than hot fudge sundaes, better than blue skies and warm sunshine, better than sleeping in.  We all desire to be known in this life, and when my husband looks at me and tells me exactly what I'm thinking, when he correctly identifies my mood, that deepest desire is met.  He gets me!  When we are sitting across the table, delicious food between us, and my belly aches from laughing so hard, but he just keeps going, I have found a joy that goes beyond happiness.  When we find each other and our limbs are entwined and the world around us falls away, I am delighted that we fit together in this perfect, beautiful way.  And when that union creates a life inside me, when my body stretches and grows and he is there every day, wiping my tears and holding my hair and procuring the very food that my body is craving, I am cared for.  Suddenly this little life lies between us, a life we created out of our love, and feeling the warm weight of our child on my chest as I look into the eyes of my husband is the very best of what can come.  These moments come again and again over the years, the wonder and the laughter and the connection and the acknowledgement that we created that.  On my wedding day, I had no idea that these were the bests that were to come.

I was also unprepared for the worsts.  Because when marriage gets bad, it is the absolute WORST that life has to offer.  Once we pronounce our vows and triumphantly exit the church, everything in our lives is now in the hands of another person.  And each of us is imperfect.  The reason this vow exists in the first place is to recognize that something bad will happen.  The person who knows you best will hurt you worst.  The fears and insecurities you reveal can be used against you.  The shortcomings and blind spots you aren't even aware of will be exposed.  The person who shares your home and your bed and your bank account will be selfish.  It will hurt more than anything, more than surgery, more than death, more than a friend's betrayal.  It will break your heart.  You will read through your vows and it will make you cry, because in the worst they can't protect you from each other.  Hurt and angry, you will realize that the hardest one to keep is the pledge to forgive.  Because you have been forgiven freely and instantly, but your heart has grasped your spouse's crimes and refuses to let them go.  For all that lies broken between you, you will wonder if it is time to make the final break, the one from which there is no return.  Because if we exult in the best of times, how can we bail in the worst of them?

Mostly what I have learned is that marriage is often a mix of the two, like the chocolate-vanilla swirl ice cream that my son always requests.  Each bite contains some best times and some worst times.  One of my best and favorite memories is the day we spent in Gettysburg, at the Civil War Museum.  But we were only there because our car had broken down during our trip to Eastern Pennsylvania, and we had to stay an extra day while it was repaired.  Another stand out is the day we thought Michael would leave our family, and in our anguish we held each other all night.  Our hearts and minds were one in our grief.  When I was pregnant with Winston, Chris was making me laugh so hard that I started crying.  But then suddenly I was crying, tears flowing, loud sobs crying.  He was stricken and desperate to know what went wrong, and I was frustrated because nothing was actually wrong except my hormones had swung out of control.  We have experienced moments of doubt and triumph, of anger and love, we have lived through successes and failures.  We have broken our vows and we have upheld our vows.  We have climbed the highest mountains and we have stumbled through the lowest valleys.

As far as I can tell, that's a marriage.  It is fun and it is hard.  It is challenging and it is peaceful.  It is satisfying and it is disappointing.  It is the best and it is the worst.  It is ours.

In the Tension

I first came across this phrase "in the tension" when I read Rob Bell's book "Sex God" several years ago.  In it, he describes living in the tension through the lens of body and soul.  We aren't animals or angels, he explains, but a mix of the two, and when we satisfy our bodies, we can't disrupt our peace of mind.  Likewise, we must keep our peace of mind without depriving our bodies.  I thought it to be one of the most true things I've ever read.  In this particular book, the tension is in sexuality.  Yes, we have desires in our bodies, but instead of treating sex as though we are at Baskin Robbins and must try all 31 flavors, we should ground it in a monogamous relationship that is mutually beneficial (you know, like marriage), therefore satisfying the body and bringing peace to the mind.  I thought of this again today as I sat in church and listened to a man describing a trip to a garbage dump in Ecuador, where people search for food to feed their families, and recyclables to trade for nickels and dimes to provide everything else the family needs.  Then I went home and looked in the cupboards (full), the fridge (half-full), the freezer (overflowing), and wanted to whine that there was nothing that looked good to eat.  Because, you know, I just brought home a trunk full of groceries two days ago.  How can I sit in my kitchen and satisfy my body, eating fresh bread and cherries, drinking cold water and Coke, defrost some chicken breasts for dinner, while these families to the south (and really, all around me) are going hungry?  How can I balance a peace of spirit with a tummy that's used to eating good food a few times each day?  I think I would stuff my pockets with ten dollar bills and walk through the garbage dump handing them out.  But would that be culturally sensitive?  Would it insult the people it was meant to bless?  There's a much bigger tension than the desire to experience fidelity in my marriage.

Parenting is another example of the tension.  Because we want to hold our children close and breathe in their special childhood scents, but we also want them to grow and develop and eventually leave the home we have so lovingly nurtured for them so that they can create homes and families of their own.  As much as I am looking forward to the start of school in about 5.5 weeks, I know I'll get teary when I take the boys to pick out lunch boxes and fill our cart with pencils and glue and safety scissors.  I have loved having them home with me this summer, I have loved our morning cuddles and our afternoon quiet and our long walks and outdoor exploration.  I have delighted in their kisses and declarations of love, a new thing around here.  But I have also cheered wildly as they learned to ride their bikes and enjoyed the ease of family outings now that they can help carry the load and stay longer at fun places like the amusement park and the pool.  I have had moments of congratulatory parenting as I stood in the hall and listened to the boys settle an argument and return to their play, because YES I taught them something! but Oh wait, I'm no longer needed.  Likewise when they get their own snacks it is liberating but also sad.  So I live in the tension of giving them the love and security they need but also encouraging their independence.

Tension exists where there is no easy fix, where two things battle for dominance.  Or tension is the place we choose to be when we acknowledge the duality of our lives.  Tension is hard; tension is good.  Tension can drain us, or tension can make us aware. 

"In this tension something beautiful and compelling happens...you find language to say 'It's great to be you.'"  Jason Morriss, Austin New Church

On Intimacy

I'm a lucky woman.  I married my best friend, the person who knows me better than anyone. 

I thought I knew what marriage was.  I'd observed it first-hand growing up with my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, family friends.  I saw couples raising children, washing dishes, paying bills, taking vacations, running small businesses together.  I thought that's all there was, and I was more than happy to link my life to Chris' and take part in all those things.  But there is a hidden element to relationships, something that is necessary for them to survive, and its called intimacy.  Intimacy became the surprise creamy center of my love-filled marriage.  Yes, we raise children and wash dishes and pay the bills.  That's all there.  But when you look at another couple's marriage, their intimacy is something that you can't see or feel or taste.  I think this is why we are surprised that a couple gets divorced.  "But they seemed so happy!"  "They just went on that beautiful cruise!"  "Their youngest isn't even a year old yet!"  On the outside, everything appears fine.

From the inside, I see it in the way my husband immediately passes me his pickle at a restaurant.  I feel it as his hands massage my favorite peppermint lotion into my feet at the end of a long day.  I taste it in the millions of kisses we've shared, our lips finding each other over and over. 

When we talk about relationships as though they are living, breathing things, when we say, "You have to nurture your marriage," I think we really mean you have to tend to the intimacy.  We can feed our bond, or we can starve it.  Chris and I like to spend time together.  We don't get much sleep these days, because after putting four kids to bed, it is pretty late.  Instead of rolling away from each other and turning off the light, we spend those last few hours together.  We talk.  We watch movies.  We sometimes even manage to read something together.  We light some candles and connect (wink, wink).  We trust each other.  We tell each other our secrets and frustrations.  We protect the sacredness of our bed.  I love the episode of How I Met Your Mother when Marshall says, "Yeah, I have a list of all the women I've slept with.  It's called my marriage license!"  That holds true for Chris and I as well.  But it goes further.  I am always surprised when I meet a married couple who don't share a bed.  (My first thought, no joke, is that this makes middle-of-the-night sex so inconvenient, if you have to get up, go to another room, warm up your space...)  There are times that we don't sleep together, but we limit it to one or two nights max, and usually because one of us is up with a sick kid, doing laundry and making sure they keep breathing.  Otherwise, when we are both at home, we are together.  We also try, at least once a year, to get away together.  There was plenty of time, before the kids came along, to grow closer and make time for each other.  Now that it's become more rare, we cherish those weekends to relive that simpler time.

Sometimes marriage and intimacy means that you suffer together.  When your spouse makes a bad decision, you both have to live with the consequences.  But even in those difficult times, it's important that I am Chris' wife, not his mother.  It would be all too easy to nag, to instruct, to say, "Now Christopher, I told you...."  If you are like us, especially, and married young, there's a good chance you both entered marriage before you were finished growing up (this can also be true even if you are in your 50's).  You still have to give your spouse the space to figure some things out for herself.  Just because you became one flesh, doesn't mean you share one mind.  You need to allow for, and even celebrate, each other's differences.  How could I trust my husband if he didn't find me and my quirks unique and adorable?  There should be things that only your spouse knows about you.  I very strongly believe that I should be the only person who knows when Chris needs new underwear.  There's just no good reason anyone else should be aware of that.  When you share a bed, and a home, and a life, you learn things that no one else could possibly know.

I was afraid to be vulnerable for most of my life.  Being known, all the way down to my darkest depths, was terrifying.  I was sure the person I let in would make me regret it, by telling my secrets and confirming that I wasn't loveable.  Over the past 14 years, Chris has proved time and time again that I was wrong; that he is the one person to whom I can show it all, and our love continues to grow.  The more we share, both in the day to day and of ourselves, the stronger our bond becomes, the more threads are sewn in this beautiful tapestry we are creating.  And through it all, I feel emboldened to be myself, to live the life I was born for.