Not A Charade-Longing for Intimacy In Marriage

 I’m gesticulating wildly in the midst of a game of charades. I’m focused on the faces of my teammates.  “Three syllables, sounds like...” Trying to get the picture across. The clues aren’t connecting. Pointing to my chest and making drawings in the air isn’t helping.  At the end of the round, my ex turns to me and says, “You are way to intense.” Words that cut like a sword.

My friend, my wife of fourteen years, affirms my intensity. On the same hand she is wired with soft and gentle edges. She is the reason we get invited to parties. With that mix, like any mix, it is easy for us to hurt each other. With words. Or complete silence. To insist that she be more like me. Friendship should be different. “Iron sharpens iron,’ is friction which renders a positive result.

Marriage is meant to be more intimate. If you want it. Authentic connection isn’t easy. Sister, I’ve got wounds and warts. I’m bent in ways that will hurt you. If I wound you, if you wound me; where do we go? Cry to Christ.

Nobody likes to hurt. At gut level I’m not going to pursue relationship if it hurts self. Painful words, wounds from my parents and previous partners lead me to protect my heart.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me. I love you.” This is a mantra that my wife’s family picked up at a Christian youth conference. Now we use it in circumstances ranging from silly (it really did need salt!)  to serious (I’m sorry I screamed at you). It’s about commitment to the covenant.

I long for that intimacy. It’s only going to come when I lean inward with courage not outward with fear. It’s so crucial to have the relationship be a safe sacred space. As Keith Green once sang, “For there are many where friendship's unknown, they live together but really alone. And the days go their ways in silence, tense hours of woe. We do not mean to have it so."

 

I'm Giving Up Sleep For Lent

 Not all sleep, of course. It’s my first time ‘giving something up’ for Lent. Ideally, it’s an opportunity to identify with and appreciate the significant suffering that Christ went through on my behalf. People give up all kinds of stuff, chocolate, fish, social media and sports. I know of one person that sacrificed sarcasm.

I don’t want to approach Easter with arrogance. Nor do I desire to enter into self-flagellation as Martin Luther did before he understood his justification by faith. Seems the season should hold some sacrifice alongside a reflective posture. Loss and discipline. Remembering and celebrating. Perhaps you’ve come across people where their supposed sacrifice seems ho-hum, “I’m giving up salads!” I felt like I should loosen my hold of something that’s got hold of me. Something my friends recognize as my attachment. My wife’s loud guffaw when I told her I was giving up sleep let me know I was giving up the right thing.

Why sleep? I love my sleep. I have friends that enjoy sunrises. I don’t. Sunrises happen early in the morning when people should be sleeping. If I were on the show Survivor, giving up food would be a tertiary problem. What would ruin me would be giving up sleep. And coffee. The coffee which I need because I’m waking up---from sleep. It comes easy to me; in cars, on airplanes, in chairs and beds. I go to bed late and get up late. But not this season.

I’m not the watchman waiting for the morning, but I’ve been surprised to find a richness in rising earlier. My own voice encourages me to rise up saying, “It’s Lent!”. There’s been no mystical experience, no deep insights into Christ’s suffering. Nothing earth-shaking at all really. There has been this; a settling quiet. A peculiar calm as I sit at my desk drinking my coffee and reading my books. Beneath all that is an expectancy for Easter, the most earth-shaking of events preceding the raising of Christ, the First-fruits of those who are asleep!

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

When The Poem Ends

At very first glance, her beauty slays,

She’s there in the flesh, not a vapor,

Pulse revs up and breath gives way,

As you put pen to paper.

Every line a work of art,

Every word has you stirring,

Oh the joy I feel in my heart,

With every rhyme that’s occurring.

 

Happy days of cheese and wine,

Sweet chocolate and red rose,

All things come to the end of their time,

As poet writes their last prose.

 

Rapture gone that once was mine,

Your lips no longer ignite,

Darling we’ve reached the end of our line,

No more words to rhyme or write.