Marriage Moats-Looking Up

Published: Thu, 12/08/11

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

(If you want to hear Lori read the story click)here

It astounds me when I remember to look up. The view is incredible, and freely available. Yet more often I find myself preoccupied with the comparatively narrow layer hovering twenty feet over the ground. The expanse above it is much more inspiring, and less cluttered with things mundane and temporary. Yet I convince myself that my immediate surroundings are of great import.

Granted I do not live in a city, in which case the envelope of human domain is larger. But even the World Financial Center in Shanghai, which scrapes 500 meters at the top, does not make a measurable dent in the troposphere.

I was talking with a woman who has been living with her boyfriend for six years.

"Are you planning to get married? " I asked.

"I don't know. Sometimes I want to, but other times I am not sure."

I sighed. If I were dependent on my vacillating emotions alone, my marriage would have crashed and burned ages ago. But thankfully I am not the highest point in my known universe. God is. His influence tips the balance on my indecision. Looking up for His guidance frees me from the magnetic force of all this chaos.

I can look at a trail of ants, marching along the path to their ant hill and smirk. I watch them move clumps of dirt, and carry burdens of bread crumbs in complete ignorance of larger causes, like Occupy Wall Street or the decline of marriage in society.

"The world is much bigger and more interesting than you will ever see, little ones," I patronize.

But what comments do the angels refrain from making in my hearing? Do they sigh when I obsess over petty grievances in my marriage as if they matter a whit? Or are their lips pressed closed, letting me carry my burdens and make choices about pretend currency as if it will matter in a hundred years or even thirty, a time span which for them does not make a dent in eternity?

Simply looking up turns my head in a way that expands my view, and allows inconsequential concerns that have been weighing me down to roll off my back.

I look up and voila, things start looking up too.

Photo by Joy Feerrar

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