Here's the thing: Enthrall me with a Love Story

At 35, I can confidently say that I’ve done my lifetime’s share of reading.  I treasure the mantle, “bibliophile,” and will add to my ever-expanding library until my time on earth has passed, even if I have to create pathways through my stacks to make my home livable.  It is telling that I am both giddy and comforted at the thought of that many books lingering in my home.   I’ve also watched my share of movies.  I majored in film for a few semesters as an undergrad, and still hoard the good ones as greedily as the books I love.  I get to both the local and national theater as often as I can.  I’m a card-carrying, lifetime thespian; though prefer now to watch others tread the boards more deftly than I ever could.  And as every aspiring novelist, I strive for publication, daily (ish) disciplining myself to take the pictures in my head and paint them on the paper with the words tucked in my heart. 

               Suffice it to say: I’m a big fan of a good story.

But there is a troubling theme rampant throughout all these mediums.  One that has put me off more books than I care to count or more movies than I am want to mention, and has kept me out of more theaters than I would like.   Sadly, this theme has to do with love.

It has become the prevailing notion that love is only exiting when it is new.  Very Romeo and Juliet, albeit; but it has been taken to an even more ridiculous extreme in contemporary art.  It has come to the point where love, when seemingly dulled by time and familiarity, flickers out.  And afterward, the only hope for the individual is to find new and fresh love again.  Elsewhere.

And while it feels exciting, with troupes of butterflies storming our insides, might I suggest that elsewhere is exactly the opposite of what beautiful love looks like?  That elsewhere is, in reality, the lazy, self-indulgent, narcissistic mockery of genuine love.  And quite frankly, it is this theme that should be routed from our art for the lie that it is. 

I have come to learn, with almost no help from the stories I’ve read and seen, that it is the journey that makes the love story enchanting.  Not the beginning.  And it is the end – the sweet, old couple all wrinkled and hunched, sitting together, hand-in-hand, stealing a peck in the I-know-you silence between them – that we are all striving for. 

                Because, honestly, have you ever heard of anyone who wants to die alone?  
                              Or with someone they just met?

Yes, marriage is hard.  Damn hard.  Which is likely why we are so entertained by the idea of abandoning it altogether.  But more than that, it is beautiful.  And joyful.  And full of struggle.  And sacrificial.  And defining.  And refining as well. 

But the messages we're getting through society and art is that most of the things above are “bad.”  

We shouldn’t be defined by another person.  We shouldn’t have to sacrifice parts of ourselves or our dreams for the sake of someone else.  Our relationships shouldn’t change us.  And we shouldn’t have to struggle.  Ever.  But let me tell you: society lies.  Art lies.    

The truth is that the very action of love is to sacrifice for the good of another person.  Sometimes it’s big – giving up your life for one you love.  Sometimes it’s small – getting up every morning and making coffee before the one you love wakes.  But sacrifice is the existential expression of what love is. 

And yes, to define ourselves by another person is also what love does.  I am still me.  You are still you.  But there is a new and overriding entity called US that takes precedent.  And yes, we slowly become more US than you or me.  Because that’s what happens when you meld two lives into one.  I start thinking about your needs over my own, and then consider our needs over mine.  And you do the same for me.  So the US that is who we are jointly becoming is more important than you or me.  That is how it was designed to be.     

We all change.  Throughout our lives, we morph into different version of ourselves based on our experiences up to that point.  So it is within marriage.  The beauty here is that there is another person helping refine us, rubbing off the sharp edges of self to reveal the soft truth of who we were meant to be.     

And struggle.  Well, that is just a part of life on this fallen rock.  There is no life apart from it.  Until the dawn of eternity, each person given even one heartbeat here will struggle.  And when you merge two lives into one, this truth holds for the new US as well. 

Mignon MacLaughlin said, 

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”  

I would amend this quote.  Not only a successful marriage, but a happy and thriving and beautiful one.  Love is an on-going, ever adapting, constant.  And it is the foundation that marriage should be built on.  So that we don’t crave elsewhere, either in reality or in our entertainment. 

A final note –

As for the crass and ridiculous assault on marital intimacy in contemporary media, I have two answers: 

Experiential: Fourteen years and a twice post-baby/post-breast-feeding, now peri-menopausal, body later, and I am more delighted with the intimate moments in my marriage than I ever was as a new, perky, peak of physical perfection bride discovering her groom.  Truly, I can only imagine it gets even better from here. 

From Scripture: King Solomon, the man whom Hugh Hefner could only fantasize of being, penned a number of proverbs and, eventually, the book of Ecclesiastes.  Bearing in mind that the Song of Solomon, the most erotic and beautiful poetry in the sixty-six books of scripture, is also attributed to his pen, Solomon admonished his reader to “rejoice in the wife of your youth,” and “enjoy life with your wife, whom you love.”[1]    

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Fellow sojourners, I urge you to cast off the lies that love is only about beginnings; that love is only beautiful in youth and newness.  Do not buy into the lie that one love can overtake another, if the first has grown still.  The second, dear one, is not love.  It is a vicious pirate and unabashed charlatan.  Do not stand for this theme in your entertainment.  Look for stories of love that are genuine, stories that honor the journey.  Beginnings are exciting.  But it is the endings that matter most.   For while art may mimic life, artist also have to eat.  And if you don't buy what they're selling, they might just explore new topics.  

Strain for that golden-aged park bench, with two lovers covered in the lines of their shared histories, fingers entwined and spirits at rest with the ease of the other’s nearness. 

For the best love story Disney every told was that of 

Carl & Ellie.      

Found this delightful fanart at Norke's deviantart site.  I get teary just looking at it.  Go here to see more. 

  

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[1]Proverbs 5:18 and Ecclesiastes 9:9  |   These admonitions are easily applicable to wives as well, now that women have the power to seek divorce with the same ease as men.  Whereas when these words of wisdom were written, women were not permitted to seek divorce; thus there was no need to admonish women against leaving the husband of her youth.                 

Here's the thing: Modesty

This is a topic that I’ve been meaning to address in more detail, as it is one fraught with many-layered hurt on both sides.  But this morning, as I was sipping my coffee and scrolling through Twitter, I noticed Rachel Held Evan’s link to this article over at Her*mentutics, the feminine arm of Christianity Today:

A Dad’s Perspective: Why I Tell My Daughters to Dress Modestly

I read the article, which is thoughtful and well-articulated, as well as the early comments.  And once again, I found myself disagreeing with Ms. Held Evans (no, I will not turn in my feminist card, thank-you-very-much). 

You see, I am a late comer to this faith party, the Mowgli of Christianity.  I was raised outside of the nuanced, Louis XIV world of Evangelical modesty. I spent the first few years struggling under the weight of trying to catch up to these gilded-cradle royals; tugging at my skirts, folding my arms over my chest, keeping my eyes on the floor, and flushing when older women in the church talked to me about dressing modestly because their sons and husbands shouldn’t have to be confronted with the female form while they’re trying to worship.  Their eyebrows were raised in judgment at my plunging neckline and snug fit of my shirt; when all I wanted was to be done wearing maternity clothes so I could feel pretty and to have easy access so I could nurse my baby and get back into service.   

But, reader, I am also the wife to a man who, many years ago, struggled with lust.  I am too familiar with that haunted darkness.  So hurt by this sin that I began to objectify my sisters for the opposite reason.  I became the haughty judge of short-lengths and necklines, the disgusted tisk-er at barely-there swimsuits, the bent and frowning, bitter woman who loathed women dressing intentionally provocatively.  Because it might draw men’s eyes; it might somehow diminish my beauty.  Sin heaping upon sin. 

Sin has a way of devastating everyone involved - and causing all effected to stumble.        

As we healed from this, and the many other sins I inflicted on our marriage, I recovered my knowledge of truth.  That women, being created in the image of God, are inherently beautiful, our beauty a gift to be delighted in and shared.  For when this beauty is objectified, bartered, or shamed, it is not because of us – the debt of that sin is heavy on the one who acts upon it.  So I read articles like that above with great trepidation.  I have heard many voices telling their stories of shame – because they weren’t allowed to lead worship, lest their figure cause male congregants to lust.  I can’t imagine how much that must hurt.  To be told you can’t exercise the gift you’ve been given because of who you are.  And I have watched as good men fell head-long into the ocean of lust, dragging their families to drowning with them.  As a feminist, and mother of a soon-to-be-teenaged daughter, I do not want my child to objectified, to be seen as a sum of her reproductive parts – to be made less in the eyes of males.  Nor do I want my son to reduce any female to that either.

And that’s the thing: I struggle with how to honor God, both sexes, the beauty He created in them, and how to guide my children away from the miry pits of inappropriate seduction and lust.      

 

I agree with both the author, Peter Chin, and Rachel Held Evans in that lust is a sin in the heart of the individual.

The responsibility for lust cannot be levied on its object.

 I also agree with Rachel in that women should be dressing to please the Lord and not humanity.  Dressing to please the Lord must have as its inception one’s love of God and, therefore, love of others, as Jesus noted that these are the greatest commandments [Matt 22:37-39].  Paul’s exhortation in Romans 14 is applicable to the modesty discussion because he notes that our willful actions [dressing to attract the attention of either sex] can cause other believers to stumble.  Knowingly causing a brother or sister to stumble is not loving them.  As Paul asserts, the love to which believers are called requires the voluntary abdication of personal freedom for the sake of another; it requires self-sacrifice.

Therefore, dressing to please the Lord carries with it the responsibility of considering others and how our actions might affect them, as much as glancing at an attractive person carries with it the individual’s responsibility to guard against lust.

What are your thoughts, reader?  How do you address modesty – with your children (male and female), with your spouse, with yourself? 

Here's the Thing: Porch Madness

[Psalm63:2-5]

Let’s just state the obvious, shall we? 

          It’s been awhile. 

If you’re still there, reader: Thank You.  Truly, I’m humbled that you’ve come back, too.

I have opened this blog almost daily these past two months, and have stared at the blinking cursor, waiting for all that’s in me to come flooding out. 

But that’s the thing: there wasn’t much in me to pour out.  Not for any reason other than inside was – quiet. 

I was – I am still – passionate about how God loves His children, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, sin-affinity, failings or achievements.  I will never acquiesce to even the idea that we can thoughtfully and logically say abortion is okay.  I love God’s church, Christ’s body and bride; but I still have such a hard time with how we treat one another, both inside and outside her walls.  I know that marriage was created by God, and as such, should reflect His perfect and loving relationship within the Trinity; and I believe (scripturally) that this is an equal and sacrificial love, that should neither dominate nor diminish either person.   I continue to delight in seeing God working in and through His children in spite of ourselves.    

I needed to delineate all of this because, for a while now, I feel like I’ve gotten a bit off track.  Like I took a turn down a winding path, that wasn’t necessarily wrong, but in a very Frost-ian way has made too great a difference in what these words have become.  It was only when I stopped, looked around and listened to where I was, that I realized this wasn’t where I’d set out to go.  Thus, I felt the need to articulate my path clearly, both for myself and for anyone still reading.    

I was listening to many different voices, some living, others gone to their eternity; and I found myself trying to appease each one.  To incorporate their influence, draw from their wisdom, and respond to their views.  Again, while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it took my focus away from where it should be.   

Years ago, maybe five or six, the Officer and I decided to add a paver stone porch to our yard.  We measured. hauled sand, pounded it down, and began the tedious task of placing each square; making certain every single one was aligned and sloped away from the house at just the right angle so that water wouldn’t pool and the porch would be perfectly smooth.  The task was daunting, taking days to complete.  And because I have hidden perfectionist tendencies, I spent more time with each individual square than I should have.  I got mired down in making every single one as perfect as I could.  It wasn’t long before I found insurmountable faults with each one.  The tiniest discrepancy became something that was going to throw the entire design to ruin.   And I lost sight of the project as a whole; my vision narrowed so completely that it encompassed on the brick before me. 

Eventually, the Officer coaxed my eyes to see the entirety of our project: how far we’d come, how pretty our results were to that point, and the potential that was even more evident in light of our progress.  I needed to take my eyes of the task just before me and see a greater scope.     

I mention this story, because it’s indicative of what’s happened over the past few months.  I narrowed my focus too much, saw too many troubles before me, and lost sight of what I had set out to do in the first place:

To share the truth I have learned with any who will listen.

So in the interim, I have been slowing down, watching rainstorms and marveling at their inherent beauty.  Studying the faces of my loved ones and soaking in the God-in-them I see there.  I’ve also been doing some repenting (a lot, actually).  I’ve been doing some listening (probably not as much as I should, honestly).  And I’ve been working on re-adjusting my thinking. 

And I’m to the point now that I’m going to do what I started out doing, not what I devolved into.  I’m going to focus on a theme for a few weeks at a time, sticking close to Scripture and worship.  And because I have a hard time focusing on one thing at a time, I’ll be peppering these articles with an occasional with a segment I’m calling “Here’s the Thing,” in which I’ll comment on a topic with my unabashed personal (though one hopes Scripturally-informed) opinion, or review a book (of theological bent) I’ve read.   As always, I invite questions of all kinds and comments, so long as they are respectful and thoughtful.  I maintain sole ownership of the content here, so anything I deem rude, hurtful, or slanderous will be removed.

I hope you’ll join me.