Committed

[I'm listening to X & Y by Coldplay]

In your relationships, do you gauge your commitment by your emotive state or is commitment an action based on something so much more transcendent? Laura and I were talking about this while driving tonight [long night-time drives always make me tired and they always enhance my desire to think and speak]. My hypothesis is that most relationships that fail do so because one [or both] of those who are involved expected that the relationship would be…perfect. At least, they expect that it will be near perfect.

The problem is that by our very nature, no perfect relationship is humanly possible.

Day in and day out, whether at work or at home, I struggle to have control. That very struggle creates such a wonderfully deep and earnest tension in things that relate to the relationships.

But I’m not in control.
I can rarely even control myself.

On possible solution is to be committed to the purpose of the relationship. My emotions will fail me. My wife will fail me. I will fail my wife. My convictions, sad as it sounds, will fail me. But if the purpose of the relationship is transcendent – if it is above me and comes down to my level – then it’s sort of incorruptible, right?

I can misconstrue the purpose altogether, and if I do it’s not that the purpose has failed me, I’ve failed the purpose. I think that this is why you’ll see the figures quoted wherein it is stated that marriages in states [or nations, or dogmas, or political entities] that prescribe prearranged marriages have a lower rate of divorce than democratic, or relative, state.

In the relative state, our attention to the relationship may be directed to the purpose to which we attribute to the relationship. In respect to marriage, the designated purpose may be to raise children. It may be to seek economic ease or stability. It may be to satisfy the base lust of the flesh. It may be just because you think that you really gel with someone, or that you really think that “this must be the one.”

In a static state, however, there may be less room to designate various purposes as the meaning for marriage. I would think that the Christian sense would provide for a static state in marriage. From what I understand, the purpose of my marriage is transcendent as it is a picture [whether fair or poor] of the relationship that Christ has to the Church. Those purposes listed in the relative state may be benefits of the static state [or of each other], but if my commitment is to finances then my commitment fails when I stop cashing in. If my commitment is to children, then I leave the nest as soon as my little chicks do. If the sole purpose is the satisfaction of my lusts, then my commitment is drawn away as quickly as my eyes are.

My opinion is that the marriages that are really making it are the ones that are drawn to the transcendent purpose. Of course, that purpose is given different parameters by different systems of belief. I don’t think that Christian marriages are better by association [far from it, too many fail], but I do think that the static state holds far better and away than any other system.

In the idea that my marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church, you see the death of Christ for the sake of the Church. You see the death of the Church and of the self for the sake of Christ. It’s a sort of paradox of sacrifice, right?

In the idea of general relationships, you see the same paradox in the static state of Christianity. When Paul writes a letter to a church in a town called Philippi, he tells them to consider the other guy as better that themselves – as more significant.

If I can keep that in mind, then my relationships [both in and out of marriage] become simultaneously more simple and still yet difficult. On the end of simplicity, I don’t have to look at the people around me [or the woman beside me] and judge them by the measure of self. Still yet difficult because my deepest desire is to be better than the people around me [or the woman beside me].

More simple because I have a different sort of freedom that allows me to do this.
More difficult because now there is this fight in the depth of my heart to do the right things and to want to do the wrong things.

What makes it worth the hope that all of this is real though, right? What makes my death in relationships worth the sacrifice is the belief that Christ has done the same thing. If it is the case that Christ hasn’t – if it’s the case that He really hasn’t prepared digs in His city for me then [frankly], I’m wasting my time altogether and you can feel free to pity me for it.

So then, the hope for my marriage is this idea that it its transcendent purpose is to model an incredibly transcendent relationship. That’s a bit heavy, and now it is late.

Thank God I have the freedom to try this.
Thank God I have the freedom to fail [because I will, over…and over…and over].