Marriage Letters: My Job, Your Job

Every Monday, Amber and I, along with Joy and Scott Bennett, and others, write Marriage Letters.  It is an effort to encourage others to fight the good fight, to do the hard work. Did you write one this week? Visit Amber’s blog to link it. This week’s topic–My Job, Your Job.

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Dear Amber,

Yesterday, Isaac propped a trellis against the side of a tree and climbed 12 feet into its boughs.  Jude stood beneath, throwing old hickory nuts into the tree while Isaac wobbled back and forth, dodging precariously.  It was their  new game.

Sensing the onset of a trip to the emergency room, my face filled hot red and I bellowed from around the corner, “BOYS!”  Isaac scurried down the trellis; Jude about-faced, drew up all the innocence he could muster and said “what, Daddy?”  Realizing I had made my point, I turned and caught Ian filling his backpack up with leaves and sticks, treasures he intended to keep under his bed.  He beamed, “look, Daddy!”

That’s when I took a deep breath and mustered a side-ways smile.

This mothering thing is difficult, I know.  You’ve given me four boys in seven years and they build kingdoms and stage perpetual wars.  They draw scenes from the Hobbit, litter the house with paper airplanes, and create  daggers from tinker toys.  They’d rather read My Side of the Mountain than Charlotte’s Web.  You’ve never complained about the lack of little dresses, the absence of Easy Bake Oven smells, or the missing baby dolls.  You’ve embraced your role as the mother of boys, the arbiter of the last great war.

I know it takes a good prayer for peace and a few minutes of shelter every day to survive this Rock House.  I know that you listen to Jordan, Josh, and Dave from time to time; you try to create little refuges like that.  And most days, when I have a coffee break, I pray that you find rest in those little refuges.  Weathering  daily onslaught of Orcs, bandits, and linebackers is hard work, after all.  You always weather, though.  And you manage to bring order to it.

Our occupations are different, there is no doubt.  But while I work in the kingdom of men, you toil in different fields, shaping the souls of four little boys. You are teaching them to be good men, teaching them to be sensitive to Spirit things.  You allow them room to play rough–that’s what boys do–but you rein them in for moments of quiet.  You teach them to rest, but also allow their imagination to explode across the great plains of our carpeted living room.

You are living a high calling, Amber.  You wear it pretty well.

Here’s to Narnia, and plane crashes, and swords, and stuff,

Seth

Marriage Letters: Patience

Every Monday, Amber and I join Joy and Scott Bennett in writing Marriage Letters.  It is an effort to encourage other married couples to fight the good fight, to do the hard work. Did you write one this week? Visit Amber’s blog to link it. This week’s topic–Patience.

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“Love is patient…”
~1 Cor. 13:4

Dear Amber,

“Love is patient.”  That’s  what the scripture says.  And before marriage, perhaps we had some vague notion of what that meant.  It was a conceptual notion, though, with no roots in life-narrative.

We’ve had our dark days, and I won’t recount those here.  But through the struggle, I learned the look of patient love.  It digs deep roots, stands firm like a Louisiana live oak.  It’s slow and long, provides shade for sinners and grace for community.  Patient love understands that brokenness is all-afflicting, recognizes the sickness in self.  I think patient love is humble.

I’ve learned all of this from you.  But we’ve also seen the truth in the narrative of our friends.  The couple who lost their child a few years back.  They clung tight during the dark days.  The woman with a stranglehold on hope while her husband exercised his wanderlust.  The old-timer who suffered joyfully through the cancer bout with his wife.  These are our saints.

These days, marriages are falling like Bruce Lee victims.  We’re watching them bleed out, watching them succumb to divorce, affairs, apathy.   They tell us that we don’t understand, that they’re not happy, they’re not in love, or that there are trust issues.  We watch them broken-hearted and beg them to be patient, to seek wise counsel, to hang in there.  Some do.  Some don’t.  It’s the way of our world, I suppose.

I wish we could convince them that patient love  is sanctifying, that it has the power to save a soul.  I wish I could convince them that patience is more than a virtue; it is vital.  And maybe there’s no guaranty that patience cures all, but at least it’s worth a try.

Thank you for bearing with me.  I suppose it takes a special woman for that task.  If I knew I was marrying a saint all of those years ago, I might have been a bit more grateful along the way.  But even in that, you’ve been pretty patient. And for that I say…

You are still my best,

Seth

Marriage Letters: Opposites Attract

Every Monday, Amber and I join Joy and Scott Bennett in writing Marriage Letters.  It is an effort to encourage other married couples to fight the good fight, to do the hard work. Did you write one this week? Visit Amber’s blog to link it. This week’s topic–Opposites Attract.

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Matthew 10:7—For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.

Dear Amber,

They say that opposites attract, and in the early days I think that was true.  You were funky, wore vintage clothes, and listened to Seattle rock.  I was straight-laced, wore Polo shirts and Birkenstocks, and listened mostly to Rich Mullins.  You had a deep drawl from the dirty south.  My accent was more neutral.  You wrote poetry.  I wrote economic analyses.  You were bound and determined to burn a slow mysterious wick.  I was bound and determined to percolate.

From the moment we met we stuck like magnets, my negative to your positive.  There was joy in discovery each others’ styles, tastes, and doctrines.  We found a common love in turtle cheesecake, so there was that.  Otherwise, we were an engaged contradiction, a young conundrum.  I think the best things start that way.

But if opposites attract, we’ve found that it is the commonalities that bind.  Over the last 12 years, we’ve learned to dance to the same music.  We’ve hurt together, forgiven each other, healed together, rejoiced together.  We’ve left churches together, found churches together, put down roots.  We’ve made deep and lasting friendships together, found a common love for common people.  We’ve shared love for four babies.  We’ve discovered that everyone (even the Baptists) love good wine.  We’ve both put off old habits, tried to kill the worst of our flesh.  We’ve both found the joy in Come Thou Fount.  We’ve managed to raise common ebenezers.

And through this process, we’ve learned the hard lesson.  We are neither opposite nor similar.  Instead, we are one.  The process wasn’t easy; it wasn’t pain free.  But it has been good, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Drinking coffee with you is still the best part of the morning,

Seth

Marriage Letters: On the Nightly Routine

Dear Amber,

It’s 2:20 a.m., and I’m still awake.  Of course, it’s 8:30 in Amsterdam, where I’m typing this letter and I’m drinking coffee, which will no doubt make it difficult to fall asleep any time soon.  I can’t remember the last time I had coffee at 2:20.  Perhaps grad school?

I’m thinking about how much I missed our routine last night–the winding down with a glass of wine and an episode of Bones, the whimpering of a dozing baby.  Instead, I fell asleep sitting up–next to Andrew, no less–on an airplane bound for Holland.  We would down by playing the inflight games.  He whipped me in Reversi, but I stuck it to him in trivia.  Unfortuately, Barry, the passenger in seat 23H whipped us both in trivia, but that is neither here nor there.

I wonder how you wound your evening down.  Was it peaceful and relaxing?  Did the community group visit and help with the children?  Did you run through the Witching Hour with the fury of a Wynton Marsalis solo? Did you drink without me and laugh at Brennan’s jokes?

For seven years(more or less) we’ve ended the day together.  People ask how we managed to get on the same schedule, how one doesn’t need to stay up later and read or watch television.  I tell them that it’s good accountability, and besides, it’s just easier to fall asleep when your side of the bed is warm.  I tell them that if it was good enough for the Bradys and the Cleavers, it’s good enough for us.

I reckon folks see us as a bit old fashioned, but that’s okay.  We’ve found a good rhythm–the pulling back of the covers and climbing in, the palm of my hand on your side, the slowing of my breathing until sleep sets in, your waking me up for a drink of water, your cell phone, or an Advil.  And it’s the good rhythms that keep us upright and on course.  The good rhythms that set the tone.  Because good rhythms transcend a nightly ritual and seep into a daily practice of togetherness.

That, I think, is a rhythm worth preserving.

From way over here,

Seth

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Join us (Joy and Scott, too!) for more letters over at Amber’s place.

Marriage Letters–On the Future

In an effort to encourage the married folks, Amber and I have decided to fight the good fight a bit more publicly.  To that end, we started writing letters to each other on Mondays. 

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