Thoughts on Marriage, Part 2: Capacity, not Compatibility

Sumner wrote earlier this week about marriage--how our culture views it incorrectly, how it is a reflection of the gospel, and how it is momentary.

I have some thoughts on the subject as well. They will probably not be organized, and if nothing else they will show my struggle to grasp their truths. Most of these thoughts come from pastors and books; few of them are my own.

In Dante's Divine Comedy, heaven, or "paradise", is a structured and specifically arranged place. As Dante, the character in the epic poem, walks through heaven, he sees that there are different levels of the saints, so to speak. Upon initial reading, this seems heretical. How could this Italian poet go against the Scriptures and imply an inequality in heaven? How could he say that many will experience eternal rest, but to different and varying degrees?

Here's how:

Dante says that with everything we do in this earthly life, we are creating a capacity to love and to enjoy God. In heaven, this earth-created capacity will be filled, and filled to the uttermost. As the pastor Ranking Wilbourne summarizes, "In the end (according to Dante) you will get as much of God as you've always wanted...Some of us will be thimbles, some glass jars, some pales, some barrells, some great lakes."

This is why there is no envy in heaven. This is why no one will turn to his neighbor and ask why he has a bigger house, or an easier time paying his bills, or children at a better college. Everyone will be filled to the uttermost, and everyone will live in eternal rest and contentment. But not everyone will be filled equally.

At this point, as Wilbourne foresees, the human question becomes: "Who cares?" Many will think to themselves, "I just want to get in." They don't want to take responsibility for their actions, in this world and the next. After all, who wouldn't want to get in to heaven? But Wilbourne also says that "Only someone who did not see how enjoyable and good God is would ever ask such a question". If you truly grasped these things, "you would want as much of him as you could bear".

I think love, and marriage, is pretty much the same concept. Just as there are those who just want to "get in" to heaven, there are those who just want to "get married". They think that life will become magically better as they "fall in love"--that they'll finally grow up, stop feeling alone, and settle down to comfort and peace.

And maybe they will.

But Dante, and Wilbourne, and Keller seem to think differently. In his sermon series on marriage, Keller calls "self-centeredness" the root sin in all marital problems. And isn't just "getting in" or "falling in love" seem a bit selfish? Doesn't it imply feeling, and not action or responsibility, in both our single and married state?

Keller says that marriage, at the end of the day, is about creating a capacity to love another human being. Capacity--the same word that Dante used 400 years ago. Not "compatibility", capacity.

Apply the selfishness of the "who cares" question to questions about marriage. Most of the time, we focus on compatibility. We want to find someone who is going to make us happy. Who knows us. Who is a Christian but is also pretty but is also smart but is also funny but is also from the South but also listens to cool music.

We question. And question. And question. Is this person "right"?

And we are asking the wrong questions.

As the greats often do, Keller simplifies it. He shifts our focus to capacity. He says that if there is a person with whom you desire to stand upon an altar and publicly marry, then you do it. If there is a person with whom you can look at and say, "I have a desire to create a capacity to love them", than you do it.

And besides, go back to what Wilbourne says: "Only someone who did not see how enjoyable and good God is would ask such questions." Before God, the questioning stops, and we "want as much of him as we can bear".

I think that marriage, in its ideal state, isn't all that different. You find someone enjoyable and good, the questions stop, and you bear them.

So I feel like the next time we start obsessing over who we're supposed to marry, and worry till the sun comes up about what our lives will look like in 5 years, maybe the better questions to be asking are: am i going to create a capacity for loving God today? and will I allow him to come in and create a capacity for loving another person? The one will always lead to the other, I think.

And I think all of us would agree that we don't want to be thimbles, or glass jars, but that we would like to be great lakes.

Finally, I think we need to remember that marriage is one of three God-ordained human institutions, along with the state and the family. It was before us, and it will outlast us. It is momentary, but it points to the eternal.

Merry Christmas and Grizzmas.

Dating isn't Biblical (cont.)

That is great stuff. I have some further thoughts on the subject, as I also believe that our culture (and myself) have some really distorted views on marriage. But for now, here are some quotes from people much wiser than Sumner and myself:

"Marriage"
Wendell Berry

How hard it is for me, who live
in the excitement of women
and have the desire for them in my mouth like salt. Yet
you have taken me and quieted me.
You have been such light to me that other women have been
your shadows. You come near me with the nearness of sleep.
And yet I am not quiet.
It is to be broken. It is to be
torn open. It is not to be
reached and come to rest in
ever. I turn against you,
I break from you, I turn to you.
We hurt, and are hurt, and have each other for healing.
It is healing. It is never whole.

How many of us have realized that we are always to think of the married state in terms of the doctrine of the atonement? Is that our customary way of thinking of marriage?. . . Where do we find what the books have to say about marriage? Under which section? Under ethics. But it does not belong there. We must consider marriage in terms of the doctrine of the atonement.
Martyn Lloyd Jones, Life in the Spirit

Marriage is a signpost pointing to and dramatizing the gospel.
-Rankin Wilbourne

Dating Isn't Biblical

Yes, the title of this post was intended to grab your attention. I woke up this morning to do some reading out of a book that my mother was reading. Before anything else is said, I must proclaim the amount of respect I have for my parents, and particularly their reading habits. Often when I am home I will pick up a book of my mom’s desk or dad’s “one square foot” and flip through it, and it consistently a blessing when I do so. The reason why I even mention this is because the book I continued reading this morning, and will be writing about, was taken off of my mother’s desk (yes, I am going to return it).

This post will be interesting on a number of levels due to how our culture perceives this particular topic (to be revisited soon). I find myself in or hearing of conversations about marriage that continually blow my mind. Yes, this post is about marriage. Yes, I am unqualified to talk about this topic, seeing as I am not married. BUT, I take serious issue with the way marriage is talked about among today’s young people (specifically, college students; I include myself in this category), especially the Christian communities within our society. There is a cynicism, doubt, and inaccuracy clothing our conversation about what marriage is or what we think about it.

Think with me for a moment in terms of the possible. Upon graduating college, it is possible that a young man and young woman be married. While this is not necessarily probable, it is a real and precedent-set possibility. Therefore, by nature of this possibility, our dating in college should be geared in such a way that this possibility is still that, a possibility. By no means am I suggesting that everyone should be married upon graduation, nor am I suggesting that every dating relationship be this heavy, burdensome task that binds one to a commitment that is not practical or healthy during one’s “college years”, for lack of a better term. I am simply suggesting that it would be in our best interest to rethink what it is that marriage is and in turn alter the way we talk and think about it. Bear with me.

This Momentary Marriage by John Piper was published in 2009, and I picked it up a few days ago as boredom was setting in and I kept on hearing snippets of conversations about engagements and weddings. I guess this is universal, the older you get the more people you know who are getting married and the more it affects your friend group, role models, and family. I am the type who gets hung up on “Oh my gosh, everyone is getting married,” for better or for worse. It really is unreal how many people “take the plunge” the older we get, and how people begin, right around their Junior year of college, to say something along the lines of “I think I want a girlfriend.” I cannot tell you how many times that conversation has come up in my conversations this semester. Guys who I love dearly are finally cutting their hair, putting down the video game controller, tucking in a shirt, and presenting themselves in a chivalrous fashion. I wish there was sociological research that I was familiar with to supplement my claim of this reality I experienced on the Ole Miss campus this fall. It is awesome.

I would argue that this happens with such regularity at this point in people’s lives because we are all struck with this feeling and conviction that this is what we are made for. Everyone, every single human, is created with an inherent need to intimately share their life with someone of the opposite sex. This basic human need and desire was made manifest this fall, but was not coupled with the appropriate view as to why this need arose from mere dust. John Piper’s book has some great answers to this sense and desire of a serious relationship with a girl or boy that will one day lead to marriage. One last thing, I hate how the word “marriage” has the same awkward connotation as does “sex” or something like that. We should be able to talk about these things with regularity, as that would also further aid our view of marriage and sex. As Christians especially, this should be an everyday conversation, and This Momentary Marriage elaborates as to why this should be the case.

I am only going to speak about the first chapter for two reasons: (1) to peak your interest enough so that you go buy the book (2) because I have only read the introduction, the preface, and chapter 1. 

The introduction of the book is titled “Marriage and Martyrdom”. Piper agrees that this is a really strange and off-putting title of an introduction of a book about marriage, as there is a correlation between being married and being a martyr. These pages speak of two stories: one of a freshly married missionary couple and one of an engaged Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The stories end with the married couple and Bonhoeffer being put to death because of their sharing of the Gospel in China and Germany, respectively. Two years before his death Bonhoeffer wrote a series of letters from prison titled “A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell”. Excerpts are used throughout the book, and this one excerpt defines the introduction, and also defines what I believe should be a part of the thesis for renovating our idea of and thought process surrounding marriage:

“Marriage is more than your love for each other…In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. You love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, and office. Just as it is the crown and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man.”

The reason for the association with martyrdom is that marriage, just like life itself, is a temporary gift that has a certain mystery about it that ultimately points to Jesus and life eternal with Him. Upon de-mystifying marriage, we learn that even if married for 50 years, we will only scratch the surface of its wonders and wounds, and that not until glorification will we understand its fully beauty and power.

            Chapter 1 is titled “Staying Married is Not Mainly About Staying in Love”. The chapter dissects this incomprehensible vision of marriage, marriage is God’s doing, marriage is for God’s glory, and that the mystery of marriage revealed is that Christ will never leave His wife. The best part of the chapter, and why I spent so much time discussing culture initially, is Piper’s analysis on our society and why we have this distorted view of marriage.

           

            In Matthew 19, Jesus is gives a glimpse of the magnificent view of marriage that God willed for His people. Christ’s vision of the meaning of marriage was so wildly different from theirs that they could not imagine it to be a good thing and they told Jesus, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry,” (v.10). If this was their response in a culture and society that was as sober as the Jewish world, how much more radical, magnificent, and “crazy” will God’s vision of marriage be in our modern, Western culture today? Our culture, as Piper so perfectly describes it, is one where:

“where the main idol is self; and its main doctrine is autonomy; and its central act of worship is being entertained; and its three main shrines are the television, the Internet, and the cinema: and its most sacred genuflection is the uninhibited act of sexual intercourse.”

Our culture finds the glory of marriage in the mind of Jesus incomprehensible and inapplicable. Jesus replied to his disciples in Matthew 19 in the way that he would probably speak to our society today about this view of marriage: “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given….Let the one who is able to receive this receive it” (v.11-12).

            Marriage is God’s doing. In Genesis 2:18-25, there are four ways to see this both explicitly and implicitly: Marriage was God’s design (v. 24-25), God gave away the First Bride (v. 22), God Spoke the Design of Marriage into Existence (v. 24; 18-25), and God Establishes the One-Flesh Union Himself in Each Marriage (v. 21, 24). The words in verse 24 point to is “marriage as a sacred covenant rooted in covenant commitments that stand against every storm ‘as long as we both shall live’.” In Ephesians 5:31-32, the mystery of marriage is more fully revealed. Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 in verse 31 and then lays the hammer, the point our society must grasp and hold tightly to, in verse 32, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.” Marriage is patterned and modeled after Christ’s covenantal commitment to His church.

            The ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, marriage exists to display God. Marriage is patterened after Christ’s covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the Church. The highest meaning and the highest, all-important purpose of marriage is to put the covenantal relationship of Christ and His Church on display for all the world to see. I once heard a pastor say, and think the saying goes here, “The best way for Christians to minister to non-Christians is to get married.” The aforementioned is why marriage exists. This is why we bother to pay thousands of dollars and invite all our friends and family to a ceremony. Piper sums this up beautifully:

“Jesus died for sinners. He forged his covenant in the white-hot heat of his suffering in our place. He made an imperfect bride his own with the price of his blood and coveted her with the garments of his own righteousness. He said, ‘I am with you…to the end of the age…I will never leave you nor forsake you’ (Matt. 28:20; Heb. 13:5). Marriage is meant by God to put that Gospel reality on display in the world. That is why we are married. That is why all people are married, even when they don’t know and embrace the Gospel.”

            My prayer for you all, and for myself, is that this view takes over our thoughts and conversations and worldview on marriage. This is a big deal, a much bigger deal than we think and portray it to be in our conversation. If our thoughts are changed, our conversations will change. If our conversations change, our actions will change. God designed marriage to be a picture. No single photograph can show someone how beautiful something is. Though a single picture may not capture all the majesty of a scene and setting, the pictures incapability does not touch or blemish the magnificence and natural wonder of it. Some pictures do give better and clearer representations than others. I pray for all of us around this holiday season that we all focus the lenses of conversations about, thoughts of, and plans regarding marriage so that “the portrait of Christ and his bride is sharp and clear.” I believe that this would be a worthy endeavor this holiday season, and until the end of time. 

At the End of the Day

Over the last year, I have compiled some poetry in my journal. These are the first poems I have ever written; I have always been somewhat scared of poetry. As I re-read them, they are all pretty sappy and pretentious. But I'm not going to edit them. They are what was on my mind at the time. Here they are, including one I wrote today:

3/25
I hope to see the world with you someday
To walk in unknown valleys and wade in streams of grace.
But today we remain here, doing the simple things
That he assigns us.
So while it is still light
Let us go out separate ways and live our day,
That tonight we may rejoin and break bread,
And afterwards, walk on known streets under moonlight,
Dreaming of those unknown streets and far-off lands.

4/17
Inside the tent, the children dance.
It is safe there, and as they move with the music
Their lives are not yet burdened by the worries of life,
Their consciences not yet muddled with doubt.

The tent isn't real life. (Or is it?)
I get the feeling I was made to watch them dace.
To participate myself (but not yet)-
Ever becoming like a child.

When I think about the beginning and the end
The here and now begin to make sense.
I get another feeling--
That one day I will not be so self-conscious.
That I will have no sense of self,
But of someone else.

Can I take your hand?
Will you accept me as I am?
As the music stops, and the band breaks,
As we go our separate ways,
I need to know that you will be here when it starts again.

Not that you will never fail me,
Only that you will try to help me.
Let us join the children,
Dancing in the Father's grace.

6/6
Sunday morning.
The light shines through the trees
Reflecting slant-wise as it falls to the earth in grace.

The trees hold their applause
Waiting for the final morning.
But they have already revealed their secret.

Giving hints and signs,
They help us through the day
And remind us of the redemption that is coming.

The day runs its course, and later,
Through the cedars I see a house, old and sturdy.
Light shines from the windows, and children run to supper.

6/9
For many years I have dreamed
Of a field of grass, green and trimmed.
Hills roll across horizon, dream-like.
I am walking alone,
The sky overcast but not threatening.
It opens up. A rain begins to fall.
A light shower at first, as in April, morning.
For reasons unexplained, or beyond my explanation,
I start to run.
A light jog at first; I am in no hurry, my destination unknown.
But the rain quickens, and so does my pace.
I do not think I am clothed, and I do not think I feel shame.
Drops pound against my face.
The field stretches ever before me,
I do not get closer to the horizon,
I never grow tired,
Thought I sometimes stop,
Not to rest but to lift up my hands.
In my dream, I wish the rain would never stop.

6/24
I am tired of trying to create moments
That i will remember forever,
Of trying to capture everything at once,
Instead of accepting it as it comes.
So this morning,
As the sun eclipses the trees and the morning mist
Separates in the shaded valleys
I am content to let it all happen.
I have no part in it,
(I had no say that first morning)
To be able to listen is all I ask.

12/15

I
like
to say
things like
"At the end of the day"
As i wait for
A day that
will not
end.

Welcome Back. Happy Holidays. Enjoy a Short Story.

I have always heard that "absence makes the heart grow fonder." I could not agree with that more, and I have been reminded of that recently in a myriad of ways. It is time for this blog to be revived. After talks with the co-writers of this blog, expect a face-lift and more regular posting. Christmas is a special time and we are convinced that, yes, it too, is biblical. To get you back into the swing of things, I thought I would share a short story that was written about a year ago at this time. Jordan and I have a number of short stories that include the same characters that we hope to one day make into a story. It has grand potential thanks to his abilities, and maybe the blogosphere will get a taste of it and raise some publicity for it. Until then, I invite you to entertain the following and enjoy home-cooked meals and shear laziness in this first week post-final exams:

 It took me while to garner the courage to break the seal of the letter. I was terrified it was going to overly complicate things- it was rural and professional all at the same time. I sat, pondered, over-analyzed what it might say. I always read the salutation and then lept immediately to the last line or two of a letter, so I can know how it ends. If you know how something ends, how something is going to end, it changes everything regarding how your present actions are carried out. Vision produces patience, legitimizes longevity. Well, it was a happy ending, to say the least. A memory was triggered in medias res. This wasn’t just any memory. My mind began to head down the rushing river that was the night of March 24^th. Maybe we do in fact have the same thought process about things. I couldn’t start assuming that though; that would be the end. The climax of this trip down memory lane was identical to the final pit stop this letter took, the concluding thought, before it went back in the envelope.

It was a stormy night. I love bad weather. Lightning lit up the night on several occasions as if it were high noon, or Mother Nature’s excitement about Anne finally wanting to hold my hand- she didn’t know us that well, so that’s projecting. I also don’t believe in Mother Nature- I was a Presbyterian. There is the elementary, fairy tale idea in every girl’s mind that being kissed in the rain is one of the necessary steps to love; without this experience, you might as well get a desk job and prepare for lonely nights filled with ice cream, red wine, and romantic comedies. I am sure that Anne wouldn’t have minded it, and I know I would have enjoyed it- I am just a cynic towards it because I have never had the opportunity to sweep a girl off of her feet like that. I thought twice about it, and selfishly chose to opt out and enjoy the storm with her. This was a first- she reached out for my hand. It was sweaty as I held it. Either it took that much courage to grab my callused hand or the humidity outside the room permeated in- the pressure on the inside must have been less than that of the storm.

Music has a way with people. For some an escape, for some a love language, for some an art form, and for some a relational Bible. For me, music was vision inducing; it applied to my life and explained my thoughts more eloquently that I ever could. We were listening to the new Justin Vernon record as rain fell on the tin roof. An event like this was hallowed in my mind, right up there with seeing my wife and child waiting on me. When “Skinny Love” began to play, we both ceased conversing, channeling our curiosity to the bon iver. I think we listened to the song on repeat for nearly an hour. It was funny having to try and find the spot on the record to place the dial to start at the beginning of the song. Anne was better at things like this than I. The best thing about music is that the same song, the same lyric, the same melody resonates with different people in different ways. I knew there was a special place in her soul for this song, and I didn’t know why.

From time to time we will sit in silence until the other one knocks on the door of our mind. It is “our thing”- a few taps on the temple signals “let me in to what is going on up there”. It’s beautiful. I could never call it “beautiful” in front of Anne, because she treats her words with reverence that doesn’t allow for words such as “beautiful” to be overused. It was beautiful though, no matter what she says.

I said please talk to me/Won't you please come talk to me/Come on, come talk to me/I did not come to steal/This all is so unreal/Can you show me how you feel now/Come on, come talk to me/Come talk to me, come talk to me

Anne was reminded of her father, and of the brokenness that laid there between their love for one another. She was holding all the tickets, while he owed all the fines. I wanted to cry for her as she was not ready to take that big of a leap into vulnerability with me at this point in the game. I understood. The more she talked, the tighter my grip became as I took hold of something I knew that I never wanted to let go of. I knew, I was certain.

She asked why this song had a way with me. I lied. I didn’t lie, I just only told half of the truth as if that was the whole truth. I couldn’t say all of that yet, though I knew she would enjoy it. I smiled as I finished, knowing that one day I would be able to tell her. I also knew something else. I knew that I was going back up to the Mountain for one reason. There was no doubt in my mind; I just had to be patient, I had to be fine with my decision, I had to be balanced; If this “skinny” was going to last, I had to take a risk. So I did. I signed the dotted line the next day.

As I lay in bed, in a room of both old and new friends, I realized that night was a defining moment for me. I knew that I loved a girl. Paul O’Connor loves a girl. I regained my composure.  I got to the last line of the letter. I carefully folded the letter, just as she had, and placed it back in the envelope. I put it in my Bible, which lay in my shelf. I now had the strength to make it through another day of training.

“In the morning I will be with you Paul. I will finally be back on top of the Mountain. We will be together.”

The thing about Anne was that she made simple statements that changed the world for me, and she took things that were changing my world and made them simple. I wondered what I was going to say tomorrow. At this point, there is only one thing I want to say. I had been waiting for this day. I had been waiting for tomorrow. I was ready.