O Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
I offer you my thoughts, feelings, words and deeds of today, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world. I offer you my anger, my hurt, my sadness and my sickness and I place them into your loving, pierced hands, My Jesus. Holy Spirit, take my foolishness and give me wisdom, take my weakness and give me fortitude. Father of Heaven, for the love of the Son, have mercy on me and on the whole world, for we do not know what we do. Mother Mary, be my mother, today and always. Teach me to love as you do. Amen.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Marriage and Romanticism
I have been called a romantic all of my adult life. At first I never argued with the statement.After all, I was in love with being in love. I waxed poetic about sunsets, babies and elderly couples kissing in public. I loved jewelry, silk, lace, flowers and the color pink. I loved old fashioned wicker baskets, sun-rooms, ball-gowns, bird-cages, linen handkerchiefs, dangling gypsy earrings and bohemian styled clothing. I believed in true love. I believed in love-at-first sight. I believed that it was more romantic if you married your first love and stayed married to them your whole life. I hoped to marry young and have many children. I was overjoyed at every romantic couple I met and wept each time they broke-up\separated/divorced. I proclaimed every kind of weather and every season as "romantic". I was rhapsodic about men. I memorized poetry. I sighed and wept happy tears at the sight of a Raphael painting. I knew who Laura and Petrarch were. I knew who Dante and Beatrice were. I knew who inspired Botticelli's Venus. I knew something about Romeo and Juliet other than the fact that they were teens who committed suicide. I sang the Nat King Cole song, "When I fall in love, it will be forever..." Isn't that what a "romantic" is?
But now that I enter my late twenties, though I am the same person that I am when I was young, and still do all of those things...I would not classify myself as a true Romantic in the old sense of the word. The school of romanticism is enamored of the aesthetic ideal and is in eternal pursuit of the perfect. The tragic tension of the romantic is in the pride of Byron, the shame of Coleridge, the melancholy of Keats and the ecstasy of Shelley. It is in Wordsworth's daffodils, in William Blake's angel-laden trees, and in Walter Scott's nostalgia for times and realms that he never knew. We live in a finite, temporary, imperfect world and our hearts were designed for the infinite, eternal and the perfect. So our hearts rejoice at the sight of shadows and dim reflections of that ideal and then weeps at the realization that it was only a shadow.
When you were a baby, you probably saw a brightly colored flower, decided that you wanted it, plucked it from the ground, delighted in its beauty, then learned sadly that if you plucked it, it would wither and die faster. I remember once when I was a child, being dazzled by the majesty of light sparkling on water, and perplexed that when I filled my cup with it, the light would not stay in my cup. I still feel that longing for the eternal and the perfect, as we all do. And like a true melancholic, I am often saddened by the discrepancy between what I long for and what I am actually capable of doing, experiencing, being. As a Catholic, I know that my heart's desire will be realized only by God and He alone can sate that hunger. This hope, and this resignation, is where I part ways with romanticism. Because I know that the perfect is coming and that the perfect is God, I do not have to worry about finding the perfect on earth.
Why am I talking about this? Because this fact is brought home to me as I am planning my wedding.
There is no other phenomenon in our culture more saturated with romanticism than wedding planning and celebration. Just look at the magazines. "The Perfect Wedding", "The perfect dress", "Romantic locations" , "Exotic destinations" "Finding the right florist" "The right planner" "The right location" "The right time" "The right man"...You starting to see a pattern? No matter how impoverished the couple, the dream of the bride reigns supreme on this special day. The parents might be divorced but they must be there and be nice to each other. This might be the bride's fifth wedding but she must have a three-tiered cake. Because this time it really is forever. She might have had to ask two girls she does not like that much to be her bridesmaids because her sister is overweight and her best friend got pregnant and she MUST have six bridesmaids. In her ordinary life, she wears a pantsuit, her gym clothes, and blue jeans every single day, but this day she MUST have a designer gown that costs five thousand dollars for the church and another that costs ten thousand for the reception.
Do not get me wrong. I love cake. I love silk, satin, chiffon, lace. I wear attention-grabbing colors and floor skimming hemlines in my every day life (and am sometimes called eccentric for doing so). I have no qualms with spending my money. I love flowers and sometimes buy them for no reason at all. I believe that every sacrament deserves celebration and magnificentia. Get a florist for a baptism too! Get a three-tiered cake for a first Holy Communion reception too! Wear a long white gown for your sixteenth birthday too! Or for no reason at all! Just because you are beautiful! Because you deserve it! Because no woman ever needs to give an explanation to the world for looking regal, feminine and drawing attention to herself!
What I find objectionable about this whole wedding mania is the fixation with one day for everything to be a perfect fulfillment of universal ideal and a personal fantasy. And the demand that it be such and the sense of entitlement about it. We all know the cliche about the dreaded Bridezilla. If you think about it though, every woman in our culture is encouraged to pursue everything she wants and never settles for less than what she wants-EVER. Moreover she is instilled with the truly romanticist notion that all of her dreams are attainable if she only waits long enough, cries long enough, nags long enough, gets the right lawyer, the right boyfriend, the right job, the right college, the right friends, the right career-goals, the right gym instructor, the right counselor...if she only would wish upon the right star...or sadly, if she is Christian, if she only prays hard and long enough. Then we wonder why there are so many divorces. Then we wonder why there are so many women with eating disorders. Then we wonder why there are suicides. Then we wonder why so many people are on anti-depressants. Then we wonder why the world has turned so jaded and cynical. Then we wonder why innocence is lost so young. Then we wonder why Taylor Swift writes so many whiny songs.
I do not believe that the perfect is attainable in this life.
I do not insist upon finding perfect happiness in this life.
Up until recently, I expected nothing out of life except misery. And yes, this is the opposite extreme. But the point that I am trying to make is that the idea that you will be perfectly happy forever in this life is just as nonsensical even if it is more attractive.
I used to expect that like many girls who come from my situation, that I would die very young.
When I was a child I used to try to convince myself that everybody that you loved would stab you in the back and break your heart.
Now I know better. But all the same, this does not mean that I don't know that my friends will sometimes unintentionally hurt my feelings.
My family is still going to do things that drive me nuts.
My children (when I have them, if I am so blessed) will fight with me, argue with me, disagree with me, and quite frequently drive me crazy.
My husband (after I marry him) will alternate between being "The Best Husband Ever" and "You impossible, infuriating man!" on a daily basis. My husband will alternate between thinking me the most wonderful wife in the world and the most frustrating person imaginable. That is life.
Life is supremely romantic in the same way that "Pied Beauty" is the loveliest poem.
Life is beautiful in the way that hugging my baby sister Catherine after she almost fell off the second story of our condo is beautiful. Life is beautiful as the snot and drool my sister Margaret coughed up after I saved her from drowning. Life is beautiful like the smile of delight on Elena's face after she sprinkled the bread flour all over the living room carpet. Life is beautiful like the tears on a child's face when she hugs her soldier Dad returned from Iraq. Life is beautiful like the bouquet of flowers a child picked for his mother out of her forbidden, untouchable, prized begonias. Life is beautiful like the fragile hands of an elderly woman clutching a rosary. That is the sort of romantic beauty that I want on my wedding day and the kind that I know that I will have. Because it is the sort of happiness, beauty and romance that comes from love.
At the end of the day, it does not matter if the bakery makes a mistake on my cake order. It does not matter if somebody accidentally spills wine on my wedding dress. It does not matter if I can not afford to go away for my honeymoon. It does not matter if I lose the twenty pounds. It does not really matter if my dress is alencon or chantilly lace. It does not matter if the ring pillow was made in china. It does not matter if my wedding guest are too few for a guest book. It does not matter if one of the groom's men has scuffed shoes. It does not matter if my mother in law hates my shoes.
It does not matter because this is not supposed the be the perfect day or the perfect life. The only thing I want to do perfectly on my wedding day, is love my husband. For that matter I want to do that perfectly for the rest of my life. But I know that I am imperfect and he is imperfect and our love for each other falls short of the love that God has for each of us. And I am ok with that.
My future husband said to me once, "I love you. And want to be with you when you are sick...when you are angry...when you are sad...when you are wrong...because I want to be with you always. I do not love you only when you do exactly what I want, or when you say what I want or think what I want. I love you. And I choose to love you forever."
And to confess the truth...that is sublime in its romance.
But now that I enter my late twenties, though I am the same person that I am when I was young, and still do all of those things...I would not classify myself as a true Romantic in the old sense of the word. The school of romanticism is enamored of the aesthetic ideal and is in eternal pursuit of the perfect. The tragic tension of the romantic is in the pride of Byron, the shame of Coleridge, the melancholy of Keats and the ecstasy of Shelley. It is in Wordsworth's daffodils, in William Blake's angel-laden trees, and in Walter Scott's nostalgia for times and realms that he never knew. We live in a finite, temporary, imperfect world and our hearts were designed for the infinite, eternal and the perfect. So our hearts rejoice at the sight of shadows and dim reflections of that ideal and then weeps at the realization that it was only a shadow.
When you were a baby, you probably saw a brightly colored flower, decided that you wanted it, plucked it from the ground, delighted in its beauty, then learned sadly that if you plucked it, it would wither and die faster. I remember once when I was a child, being dazzled by the majesty of light sparkling on water, and perplexed that when I filled my cup with it, the light would not stay in my cup. I still feel that longing for the eternal and the perfect, as we all do. And like a true melancholic, I am often saddened by the discrepancy between what I long for and what I am actually capable of doing, experiencing, being. As a Catholic, I know that my heart's desire will be realized only by God and He alone can sate that hunger. This hope, and this resignation, is where I part ways with romanticism. Because I know that the perfect is coming and that the perfect is God, I do not have to worry about finding the perfect on earth.
Why am I talking about this? Because this fact is brought home to me as I am planning my wedding.
There is no other phenomenon in our culture more saturated with romanticism than wedding planning and celebration. Just look at the magazines. "The Perfect Wedding", "The perfect dress", "Romantic locations" , "Exotic destinations" "Finding the right florist" "The right planner" "The right location" "The right time" "The right man"...You starting to see a pattern? No matter how impoverished the couple, the dream of the bride reigns supreme on this special day. The parents might be divorced but they must be there and be nice to each other. This might be the bride's fifth wedding but she must have a three-tiered cake. Because this time it really is forever. She might have had to ask two girls she does not like that much to be her bridesmaids because her sister is overweight and her best friend got pregnant and she MUST have six bridesmaids. In her ordinary life, she wears a pantsuit, her gym clothes, and blue jeans every single day, but this day she MUST have a designer gown that costs five thousand dollars for the church and another that costs ten thousand for the reception.
Do not get me wrong. I love cake. I love silk, satin, chiffon, lace. I wear attention-grabbing colors and floor skimming hemlines in my every day life (and am sometimes called eccentric for doing so). I have no qualms with spending my money. I love flowers and sometimes buy them for no reason at all. I believe that every sacrament deserves celebration and magnificentia. Get a florist for a baptism too! Get a three-tiered cake for a first Holy Communion reception too! Wear a long white gown for your sixteenth birthday too! Or for no reason at all! Just because you are beautiful! Because you deserve it! Because no woman ever needs to give an explanation to the world for looking regal, feminine and drawing attention to herself!
What I find objectionable about this whole wedding mania is the fixation with one day for everything to be a perfect fulfillment of universal ideal and a personal fantasy. And the demand that it be such and the sense of entitlement about it. We all know the cliche about the dreaded Bridezilla. If you think about it though, every woman in our culture is encouraged to pursue everything she wants and never settles for less than what she wants-EVER. Moreover she is instilled with the truly romanticist notion that all of her dreams are attainable if she only waits long enough, cries long enough, nags long enough, gets the right lawyer, the right boyfriend, the right job, the right college, the right friends, the right career-goals, the right gym instructor, the right counselor...if she only would wish upon the right star...or sadly, if she is Christian, if she only prays hard and long enough. Then we wonder why there are so many divorces. Then we wonder why there are so many women with eating disorders. Then we wonder why there are suicides. Then we wonder why so many people are on anti-depressants. Then we wonder why the world has turned so jaded and cynical. Then we wonder why innocence is lost so young. Then we wonder why Taylor Swift writes so many whiny songs.
I do not believe that the perfect is attainable in this life.
I do not insist upon finding perfect happiness in this life.
Up until recently, I expected nothing out of life except misery. And yes, this is the opposite extreme. But the point that I am trying to make is that the idea that you will be perfectly happy forever in this life is just as nonsensical even if it is more attractive.
I used to expect that like many girls who come from my situation, that I would die very young.
When I was a child I used to try to convince myself that everybody that you loved would stab you in the back and break your heart.
Now I know better. But all the same, this does not mean that I don't know that my friends will sometimes unintentionally hurt my feelings.
My family is still going to do things that drive me nuts.
My children (when I have them, if I am so blessed) will fight with me, argue with me, disagree with me, and quite frequently drive me crazy.
My husband (after I marry him) will alternate between being "The Best Husband Ever" and "You impossible, infuriating man!" on a daily basis. My husband will alternate between thinking me the most wonderful wife in the world and the most frustrating person imaginable. That is life.
Life is supremely romantic in the same way that "Pied Beauty" is the loveliest poem.
Life is beautiful in the way that hugging my baby sister Catherine after she almost fell off the second story of our condo is beautiful. Life is beautiful as the snot and drool my sister Margaret coughed up after I saved her from drowning. Life is beautiful like the smile of delight on Elena's face after she sprinkled the bread flour all over the living room carpet. Life is beautiful like the tears on a child's face when she hugs her soldier Dad returned from Iraq. Life is beautiful like the bouquet of flowers a child picked for his mother out of her forbidden, untouchable, prized begonias. Life is beautiful like the fragile hands of an elderly woman clutching a rosary. That is the sort of romantic beauty that I want on my wedding day and the kind that I know that I will have. Because it is the sort of happiness, beauty and romance that comes from love.
At the end of the day, it does not matter if the bakery makes a mistake on my cake order. It does not matter if somebody accidentally spills wine on my wedding dress. It does not matter if I can not afford to go away for my honeymoon. It does not matter if I lose the twenty pounds. It does not really matter if my dress is alencon or chantilly lace. It does not matter if the ring pillow was made in china. It does not matter if my wedding guest are too few for a guest book. It does not matter if one of the groom's men has scuffed shoes. It does not matter if my mother in law hates my shoes.
It does not matter because this is not supposed the be the perfect day or the perfect life. The only thing I want to do perfectly on my wedding day, is love my husband. For that matter I want to do that perfectly for the rest of my life. But I know that I am imperfect and he is imperfect and our love for each other falls short of the love that God has for each of us. And I am ok with that.
My future husband said to me once, "I love you. And want to be with you when you are sick...when you are angry...when you are sad...when you are wrong...because I want to be with you always. I do not love you only when you do exactly what I want, or when you say what I want or think what I want. I love you. And I choose to love you forever."
And to confess the truth...that is sublime in its romance.
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