buying a few PVC pieces for our drip irrigation system when I heard the song
“I’d Really Love to See You Tonight,” by England Dan and
Ford Coley (1976). I instinctively grabbed my phone and texted the lyrics to
Cyndi: “There’s a warm wind blowing, the stars are out, and I’d really love to
see you tonight.” We often send lyrics to each other.
Cyndi texted back, “It’s 61 degrees
outside. The warm breeze must be coming from inside your heart. Thanks. I love
you.”
Later we were talking about that
song and I said, “I couldn’t text the line – I don’t want to change your life.
Changing your life is one of my main objectives.”
She said, “I know. Me too.”
I said, “And I hope you keep
changing mine.”
She said, “I know. Me too.”
I had been listening to an audio
book by Elizabeth Gilbert titled Committed:
A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage. She wrote, “Love limits, almost by
definition. Love narrows. The great expansion we feel in our hearts when we
fall in love is matched only by the great restrictions that will necessarily
follow.”
To personalize Gilbert’s writing, I
would say Cyndi and I have an easygoing relationship, but don’t be fooled: I
have claimed her as my own. Her energies belong to me and to no one else – not
even entirely to herself anymore. She owes me things like information,
explanations, fidelity, constancy, and details about the most mundane little
aspects of her life. And I belong to her, in exactly the same measure.
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about her husband, “I have therefore fenced him off
from the rest of the herd.”
The Apostle Paul wrote the same
thing in I Corinthians 7:4 – “For the wife has no longer full rights over her
own person, but shares them with her husband. In the same way the husband
shares his personal rights with his wife.”
For some people, these may be good
reasons never to get married. Why allow another person rights over your own
body? Who would want that? Wouldn’t you rather be in charge of yourself and not
have to answer to anyone?
The verse reminded me of a scene in
the movie Air Force One (1997) with
Harrison Ford, after the airplane had been hijacked and the president chose NOT
to use the secret escape pod but instead remained on the plane. When his team
back in
learned that he didn’t take the opportunity to escape one of them criticized
his decision: “He has no right not to escape. Doesn’t he know he belongs to the
country and not to himself?” (That is an approximate quote; it’s been awhile
since I last saw the movie.)
His point was that the office of
President was bigger than the selfish wishes of one single man. The President
of the
lived his life in a bigger story and he was responsible to a wider sphere.
I think that is what Apostle Paul
was talking about in I Corinthians when he said neither husbands nor wives have
absolute rights over themselves, but they belong to each other. We give up our
personal rights in order to live in a bigger story, to move beyond our selfish
personal self-interest and live in a wider sphere.
Again, from Elizabeth Gilbert, “This
is what intimacy does to us over time. That’s what a long marriage can do: It
causes us to inherit and trade each other’s stories. This, in part, is how we
become annexes of each other, trellises on which each other’s biography can
grow. His private history becomes a piece of my memory; my life gets woven into
the material of his.”
As for me, I like being woven into
Cyndi’s story. It’s true that I go to great lengths to keep my life private and
to limit my exposure and to minimize expectations and to keep to myself. Yet
being responsible to Cyndi and knowing she has ownership over my personal
rights is one of the best parts of my life. I don’t resent checking in with
Cyndi before scheduling something on my calendar – rather, I am happy to have
someone to check in with, someone who cares enough about me to have an opinion.
I’m glad to know I am not alone but on a team with someone else.
“I run in the
path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32
To learn more about
With God:” http://www.runningwithgodonline.com/
Follow
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org
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