Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Our Anniversary and C.S. Lewis' Brilliance...

(a little Clayton 4th of July parade complete with sausage on a stick)

Jeremy and I celebrated our third year of marriage on the 27th of June.  It's hard for me to explain or put into words how much I love this man.  As everyone advised, our love has changed.  There is a special giddiness/head-over-heels physical and surface attraction that is a part of the beginning of such a special relationship.  The kind of love/fascination with the other that makes you want to spend every waking minute together, staying on the phone until the wee hours of the morning, yet not really knowing exactly what you talked about when hanging up.  The kind of love that insists that you are always at least holding hands or within inches of each other when together.  The kind of love that truly makes it feel as if nothing else in the world matters but your significant other.  When people used to say, "That won't last forever," I wanted to kick them in the face.  Really.  Thanks for trying to ruin this, people.  However, after three short years, I am beginning to think there was some truth to their comments, but possibly not in a way which would give them much satisfaction...because while they were partially right, they were mostly wrong.  No, I don't have to be inches from my husband at all times now, but I hate spending a night away from him.  No, we don't always have hour-long, describe-your-perfect-date type conversations, but we know each other so well now that likely we could answer those conversations from the other's perspective without even asking them the question.  No, we aren't the only person in each other's world, but we still are each other's most important. 

Yes, the initial love we shared has changed.  Is that a bad thing?  Absolutely not.  In fact, it has become much better.  We now have two miracles and a third on the way, personifying our love for each other.  We now are so comfortable with the other that we share everything, knowing our safe haven is in the other.  Yes, I am still as attracted to my husband as I was the day I met him, but I love him for so much more than what others see on the outside now.  He is my best friend, my support, encouragement, reality check and soul mate.  He not only loves me but he tries to make me a better person, and there isn't anyone else I would want right by my side for the rest of my life. 

So, here's where Lewis comes in...sometimes I read something so powerful...something that I think, "Gosh, I need reminded of this daily!"  Typically when I read something of that sort, it does one of two things (or both)...challenges me to re-evaluate my life or reminds me of the life my husband leads.  I am a little late in getting to Lewis' "The Weight of Glory," but it has supplied my current "I need this in my life" moment.  As with most of his works, I have dog-eared about every other page and underlined half of the book. Although I know I don't always "get" what he is trying to say, Lewis offers so much wisdom on living a faithful life. In this excerpt, he speaks of a human's need/desire to please his Creator...but how does one do that while not becoming self-absorbed and remaining humble?  He talks about living to raise others up, rather than ourselves...to worry as much about their salvation as our own.  This excerpt gives light to how other-centered my husband is and provides a clear layout of how one can work towards becoming more that way. How much more instruction do we need:

"A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our Great Captain inside.  The following Him is, of course, the essential point...It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.  The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.  It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.  All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.  It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and in the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.  There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal.  Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.  But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.  This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.  We must play.  But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.  And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.  Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.  If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost he same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat -- the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."

Thank you Lewis, and thank you Jeremy.

Happy Anniversary and I love you.

1 comment :

  1. Another great blog update Britt--you are such a wonderful writer!

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