Marriage Moats-Emergency

Published: Wed, 03/20/13

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

I suppose I look like my life works fine. My marriage is intact, our kids have shoes and mittens. There are four kinds of cereal and two of peanut butter, crunchy for the kids and smooth for John, in the cupboards and our car always starts. Even if you dig deeper we show up singing at church, and if you peek in the windows at night we say prayers with the kids. If there is some kind of evaluation for Successful Life I guess we squeak by.

Sometimes I have been invited into the sacred ground of people's private lives. Years ago a woman was in breakdown. Her marriage came flying apart at the seams and she was evicted. Money was scarcer than hen's teeth and physical symptoms were percolating. She had no way of predicting her address, her income or her children's future. If there was an objective test for Does Your Life Work? she would flunk.

As we spoke there were unanswerable questions, and anxiety like a runaway fire. I listened and held her. I wished I could erase the pain, and coerce her life into more sustainable terms. She deserved it. Those kids deserved it. But then she interrupted herself with a kind of station break.

"I do know the ten commandments are true." Her voice went from sobbing to certainty. In the face of broken promises and ample material for blame, she spoke with calmness. Later in the conversation it happened again.

"I cannot control what my ex is doing. But I trust God is taking care of us." I was awed. While my mind was distracted by short term solutions and knee jerk sympathy she was in a different landscape altogether. One where the ink on the test disappears.

She was not trying to impress me. There were more crucial matters at hand. Yet I felt as if I was a witness to a person becoming whole. Or holy. She was way ahead of me, regardless of the contents of her refrigerator.

I began to suspect that the task of our finite years on this planet are less about what happens to us and more about our response. In that scenario the ragged edges of our lives make it easier to strip away the wrapping.

I no longer felt fear or unrest for this woman. Rather I bow my head in prayerful respect.

Photo by Stephen Conroy

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