Marriage Moats-Coming Home

Published: Thu, 10/25/12

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

Recently I saw two videos about dramatic homecomings. One was the historic leap of Felix Baumgartner through the clouds 128,000 feet up. The other was a little boy with Down Syndrome.

Both males lost sight of home, one for a few minutes and the other for eighteen hours.

If there were an instrument for calibrating joy in being at home, I would be curious to read the ticker tape as it vacillated before, during and after the escapade. The hour before he wandered outside, the child was probably no more excited about his whereabouts than he was about the cost of bread on sale. But after wandering in the woods for hours, his living room may have seemed like an oasis. God even provided a litter of puppies to snuggle with through the cold night, who may have saved him from hypothermia.

Felix was gone for a shorter time, but a slightly longer distance. The clip I watched did not have audio but his body language suggested enormous gratitude for being home on planet earth. Although there were myriad and precise measurements of speed, acceleration, and heart rate, as well as the performance of his state of the art equipment, I doubt they found a way to quantify his feelings. The day before the jump he stood on firm ground, and perhaps thought little of it. Certainly it was not a reservoir for gladness. Yet after watching his homeland grow increasingly smaller as his balloon lifted ever higher into the stratosphere his yearning to reach it again grew increasingly larger.

In both stories. uncertainty provided the underpinnings for exuberance. Being lost behind the mailbox in the front yard, or climbing to the top of the wood pile would not have provided the same punch.

"Mom! I was lost! Were you worried???"

"Not really. I could see you from the window."

"Hey everybody, I was twenty feet off the ground and I jumped!!! Are you impressed?"

"Not particularly. I think the parachute was overkill."

Marriage is an opportunity to wander away. For some couples being lost stretches out over years. Occasionally spouses feel farther away than the nimbus layer. Yet it is a fairly safe bet that they started out side by side.

Perhaps the celebration expands in proportion to the incredulousness of the homecoming.

Photo by Joy Feerrar

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