On Marriage...

Having a little experience now after the nine years I have been married, I feel as though I have a little to offer to new couples.

We all know life has it's ups and downs. Most of us wish to.share this with someone else. We get to a point in our lives where we feel as though we are somehow incomplete and so we go about searching for that person who makes us feel complete.

In the Christian faith, while this is a very human urge and not altogether wrong, it is a base desire. We know that God's will for us is to know Him. Distractions from the passions of the flesh lead us to make decisions about relationships out of the choice to seek self-fulfillment. Our reasoning is that we want what seems natural, marriage. But how often do we consider the person we have not met yet? Prior to marriage, this is the reason for chastity and virginity.

You see, God does not give us instructions to simply Lord over us. He is our loving Father and wishes us to have true life (notice that I did not say happiness which is fleeting). He gives us the instruction to be chaste to purify us. It is an act of selflessness to remain chaste, and selflessness is a virtue that in marriage we are required to have to maintain a peace.

In Orthodox Christian tradition, the relationship of the marriage is one of continual self-emptying. Marriage is a sacrament. It is a holy act of self-martyrdom where the spouses choose to find salvation through relenting their desires to the will of the other. Permission is granted or not, based on the love of the other. Self-will is infrequent and the goal is to assist each other, out of love for one another, in Theosis (the journey of ever-growing towards the Triune God). We commonly ask forgiveness of each other each night as we lie down to sleep, honoring each other and God by not allowing anything to tear apart what God has blessed.

Life takes on new meaning when we are not living for ourselves. Living for the happiness of our spouse inevitably will bring us happiness. The love which God asks of us is impossible without Him so prayer is also essential. Not only should we pray for our spouse, but also for humility and the release from our own passions which cause conflict and distress in our marriage.

As we move forward in marriage and bear our children, we rediscover our urge to control and our selfishness. Our children's own natural desires to eat, be awake at odd hours, their diaper changing, crying, runny noses and such all become challenges to our desire to do other things and give us opportunity to let go of our will and love them. Speaking from a father's perspective this was very difficult for me in the first six months of my eldest child's life. I would love to say that it all gets easier but as they grow the challenges change and lessons about my own weakness abound!

All of this is meant to bring us to humility which is to God the sweetest fragrance. Humility warms the heart and brings one to repentance easily. Christianity is profoundly contradictory to the world view which tells us that we must seek relationship with others to complete us. God completes us and the Christian marriage is a symbolic manifestation of the Trinity. Central to the Husband and Wife stands Christ who binds them. God is our anchor and His church is our home, heaven on Earth.

From the Orthodox marriage ceremony...
Be thou magnified O Bridegroom, as Abraham, and blessed as Isaac and multiply as Jacob. Walk in peace and work in righteousness, as the commandments of God.

And thou O Bride, be though magnified as Sarah, glad as Rebecca and multiply like unto Rachel, rejoicing in thine own husband, fulfilling the conditions of the law, for so it is well pleasing unto God.