give life

Today is our fourth anniversary.

One thing I loved about the Circe conference was that the people there were all about marriage and family. You know how when you’re out in the ‘real’ world, the standard conversation opener is “so, what do you do?” At Circe, the conversation opener almost invariably was “how long have you been married?” “how did you meet?” “do you have children?” It’s a little thing, but it was so beautiful to me. These were some of the most intelligent, learned, thoughtful people I’ve been around, yet they knew what many of the academics I’ve known do not: the best things of our world are nurtured by marriage.

Think about it— stability, gentleness, strength of conviction, humility, empathy, beauty, love— we learn so much about these things from marriage. Marriage gives us a safe place, a haven. Marriage gives us a team, something to fight for and believe in and root for. It gives us a lifelong friend, counselor, comforter, supporter, lover, exhorter, a person who knows you best and believes the best about you. In your spouse’s concept of you, you can see your best self, and strive to be that person— not for your own good, but for theirs. 

People who have strong marriages don’t want to make war. They don’t want to drive carelessly. They don’t want to waste money or resources. They don’t want to bring ugliness into the world. They know true empathy, what it is to feel and think for another person and to honor their feelings and beliefs. They are the people who have peace. They are the people who are content to stay home and cultivate their lives. They bless the world, just by living. 

But back to Circe: We saw Wendell Berry and his wife, Tanya. Afterwards when Dan and I were talking about it, we realized we’d been feeling the same thing when they walked in: profound gratitude to her, just as much as to him. We’ve been married long enough to know a little of what goes on in a marriage like that, to know that if either spouse accomplishes something, the credit goes equally to both. Tanya types all Wendell’s work for him. When he finishes something, he reads it to her first. She says she always makes sure she has kleenex, because she always cries. Yes, Wendell Berry is a powerful writer. But for me, that says more about the quality of their marriage than the quality of his stories.

Later that night, we wound up talking to a man about our age who was there without his wife. When we asked about her, he said she couldn’t come because they have a newborn. He told us how they met. There was a pause and then, almost under his breath, he said “I cherish her.”

It was so simple, so quiet, so understated. And it did my soul so much good. 

How often have you been in conversations where someone talked about their spouse or their marriage with amusement, with detachment, with a sigh, with a roll of the eyes, with an anecdote meant to make you laugh by making their partner look silly? Marriage is the butt of so many jokes. But when we talk about marriage, we are talking about the foundations of our world. So how are we going speak? Are we going to speak life and health and wholeness to each other, or speak mockery and disease?

I’m not talking about sugarcoating the truth. I’m not talking about never being honest about our struggles and shortcomings. I believe so strongly in the goodness of honoring one another’s confessions, of sharing our struggles. Paradoxically, it is one of the most encouraging things to me, when done in the right spirit— because what we are really saying to each other in these conversations is “this is good, this is worth fighting for.”

What I am talking about is having a heart of life, and giving life with our words. The man I was talking to used his words to give life when he spoke of his marriage. By doing so he blessed me, and himself, and his wife, and, in a sense, the whole created world. I pray I can do the same.