A New - but Old - Subject

Another Easter has come and gone, just like thousands of times before. I must confess that I see little change in myself or the world. The prejudice, hatred, and violence that has persisted before and after the Christ’s “resurrection” continues, much of it ironically in the very name of Christianity. I despair…until my thoughts turn to Rachel and Steve’s upcoming wedding.

I consider the most poignant moment of the Passover Seder to be when the celebrant asks the question, “What makes this night different from all others?” It seems a perfectly reasonable question to ask at a wedding, “What makes this moment different from all others?” As Mary and I will celebrate our thirty-fifth anniversary three days after Rachel and Steve exchange their vows, I find this subject to be among the few for which I can claim a practical expertise.

Mary and I are in agreement that a marriage which has spanned so many years has its high moments as well as its low. The highs are ecstatically wonderful, but the lows are those that truly test the foundation of the relationship. While I would not change that moment at the altar of First United Methodist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska when I said “I do,” there are innumerable things that I would have done differently since. There is much truth to the notion that it is so easy to hurt the one you love.

As the apostle Paul so powerfully articulated in the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians, love is the key; it is also the concept so abstract that it defies concrete definition. Nonetheless, love that becomes the living presence—the third person, if you will—that unites two hearts and two minds will bind the relationship through both the good times and the bad. Love ensures the ability to forgive the mistakes that are inevitably made. Love, as Paul says, endures all things.

Because love does seem to be such an elusive reality, I’m going to devote the next few entries to its further exploration from the perspective of one who’s “been there and done that.” This is not a foolhardy claim to have figured it all out, but rather a desire to share what little I have learned over the years combined with a confession that I have so much yet to learn. I failed to “incite” any comment during Lent, but I surely welcome any thoughts readers may have concerning this new direction.