Patrick Butler: Another Look

When I was young, so much younger than today I didn’t realize what marriage meant, or when people said “the two shall become one.”

I thought about this on the 25th anniversary my wife and I celebrated last week. I admit our generation (I’m 55) took and shook up concepts like marriage in ways that are perniciously still with us today.

In 1968, “living together” was a radical idea and mostly propagated, it seemed, by San Francisco hippies interested in few things institutional, marriage included.

I remember hearing constantly back then, “who needs the piece of paper?” when it came to a marriage certificate. For those still wondering, I ask for imagination; everyone knows, religious or not, that breaking up is hard to do.

“Don’t say this is the end,” the song from the 1960’s goes, “Instead of breaking up I wish we were making up again.”

That’s because matters of the heart hurt big time when things once going so right, slowly go wrong. And religious people today are finding the divorce option as fast as their secular counterparts.

Researcher George Barna recently released figures, said the Rev. Dr. Ron Wells of Tyler’s Centerpointe Ministries — a marriage ministry — showing the divorce rate in the Christian church to be comparable to the national average. The response from much of the “secular society” to the bad news seems to be “see, I told you so. Everyone’s doing it, religious or not.”

Indeed, I’m surprised to hear people often exclaim how unusual it is for my wife and me to have been married 25 years. From our perspective, we’ve only just begun.

Lost somewhere along the way, it seems, is a spiritual concept of what “becoming one” entails. I wonder if young people really knew what it emotionally costs to “break up” if they would be so confident they could
overcome the process of “unbecoming one” in a try-before-you-buy relationship. Frankly, that’s a risk I would avoid at all costs. Hindsight is so wonderful at 55.

In 1975, the image of “oneness” that finally spoke loudest to me was of two pieces of paper — each representing a life — being glued together and then set to dry. Once dried, try to pull the two pieces of paper apart. See what damage is done to the pieces of paper, and that’s what you get when you “break up.” By the time disco came to America I’d already been through a couple of painful relationships. I was finally married at 30.

Neil Sedaka sang way back in the 1960’s “Remember when you held me tight, and you kissed me all through the night. Think of all that we’ve been through, breaking up is hard to do.”

Oddly enough, these intimate lyrics can be heard on East Texas supermarket Muzak systems as one puruses the bell peppers for tonight’s supper. But actually considering what is being sung is enough to make one lose an appetite.

In the lyrics lies a key; from the religious perspective, “oneness” does not happen when the certificate is signed. It occurs when hearts are opened, precious moments shared and two become one. That’s the magic of marriage.

It’s the real magic kingdom. So isn’t marriage worth doing well from the start?

The words “I do” mean the pair recognize the beginning of “oneness” and say they will do all in their power, with God’s help, to perpetuate it. That’s why intimacy — spiritually speaking now — is for “oneness” only.

Much of my generation didn’t get that idea too quickly. We should be helping to stuff the toothpaste back into the tube, letting those coming after us know some of the “revolutions” we fired up in the 1960’s were not all they were advertised to be.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen all that often and more people suffer the consequences of paper lives torn to pieces. This may be the equivalent of a voice crying in the wilderness, but isn’t it time somebody does?

When I see young people entering into oneness unaware of the potential pain they expose themselves to, it makes me cringe. I hope it all works out but frankly, today’s statistics seem to be against so many of them.

I hope no one has to wait until they are 30 or older to find a love they can be sure of because of past pains. But if they do, I believe it will be worth the wait.

Perhaps the wedding officiate “declares” a couple man and wife and the state approves. But it really is the couple declaring it again, week after week.

Soon 25 years pass and they find themselves on a cruise to the Bahamas wondering how the time went by.

Patrick Butler
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