Marriage Moats-Black Eye
Published: Thu, 12/29/11
| Marriage Moats | Caring for Marriage | ||||||||
|
 If your right eye offends you, pluck it out... If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off." Matthew 5
That seemed unnecessarily drastic to me. Couldn't we just close our
eyes and sit on our miscreant hands instead? Really, Lord. Pluck it
out????? Yikes.
Benjamin currently has a black eye. I am pretty sure it is from
when he "pokes himself in the eyeball" as he says with vengeance when
things go awry. He is convinced that his appendages have their own
villainous intentions and need to be harshly reprimanded. He whacks his
fingers when they misbehave by causing him to spill the juice or lose at
a video game. Sometimes I worry that he will dislocate them in his
punitive efforts. He yanks hard enough that he jolts himself with the
pain.
There is a Dr. Seuss book that includes a fabricated animal with a
very long tail. The spotted something-or-other can bite the tip just before he falls asleep, knowing
that by the time the pain travels the convoluted length of tail and
reaches his brain it will be time to wake up. It is his in house alarm
clock. No batteries necessary.
Sometimes I hear of people who try fervently to inflict pain on the
other person in their marriage. Then, when the misery circles back to
hurt them as well, they seem indignant. Marriage is an effort to join
two people into one. This is a messy process, taking at least as long as
the marathon surgical procedures necessary for the reverse process of
separating conjoined twins.
Sometimes on winter mornings John forgets to cover his side of the
waterbed with quilts after he gets up. I cover mine, self righteously
thinking, "I'll show him."
Show him what? The high electric bill? That comes out of our joint bank account?
I think the Bible is right after all. When a tooth gets an abscess,
you extract it before gangrene sets in. When I have a penchant for
hurting my husband on purpose, I need to pull it out from the roots. Photo by Andy Sullivan
you can support us at
www.caringformarriage.org |
|||||||||