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Articles We Love
LOVE by Bo Sanchez Getting married is the greatest mistake anyone can ever make.
Being wed is the height of insanity, the most ludicrous
commitment, the totally illogical decision any human being can
fall into. Tell me. Why will I commit myself to be with one woman
for the rest of my life and thereby reject 3.2 billion other
females in the world? Along the way, I'll meet a girl who'll be
more beautiful, or more intelligent, or more charming, or sexier,
or holier! So, why nail myself down to one choice permanently
and suffer the agony of watching beauties pass by me?
And in western countries, one out of two marriages end up in
divorce. That blows my mind. That's a pathetic 50% failure rate!
I won't buy a car, a stereo, a shaver, or even a nail clipper if
there's a 50% chance that it'll conk out on me. I simply won't!
And why stay with one person "in sickness or in health, in riches
or in poverty, till death do us part"?
Is my mind fried? If my shirt shrinks on me because I eat too
many Big Macs, don't I just throw it away and buy an XL? And if I
outgrow my ancient 386 computer, don't I just look for a 200 PENTIUM II PC?
And then there's the catastrophe some call kids. I mean, do I
really want to wake up in the middle of the night to entertain a
self-centered, bald, toothless tyrant in diapers? Do I really
want little rampaging monsters to break the most expensive
furniture in my house? Do I really want juvenile creatures to
stay on the phone for six hours straight, listen to noise they
call music that you believe came directly from hell, and mope
around uncommunicative, catatonic, and depressed because another
demented juvenile creature (called boyfriend) hasn't called for
the past thirty minutes? Why should I go through the torture?
Marriage is insanity.
On the 11th of this month, I celebrate my 32nd birthday. And on
that same day, I commit myself to insane living. Marowe Lopez is
her lovely name, the one person I choose out of 3.2 billion
females. Yes, we will have tiny tyrants that will wake us up at
night, little monsters that will destroy our house during
playtime, and creatures from outer space called teenagers.
Why???? Because of three reasons.
FAITH. We believe that God calls us into marriage. And if he
calls us there, that means He'll be there to meet us.
We will suffer all things, just let us be with our God.
HOPE. We confidently expect the best blessing immeasurably
much more than all the hardship. God will bless us beyond
our wildest dreams.
LOVE. Oh yes, there will be other females who'll be more
beautiful, or more intelligent, or more and more
that. But they'll only be just: females-like
Flowers in the field of a million hectares of flower
fields.
But not this woman-My Marowe, the one beautiful flower I have
personally chosen, personally picked from her roots, personally
planted in my own clay pot, personally watered every day, and
personally loved every day. Because of my love for her, there
will be no one like her. In my heart, she will eternally be the
most beautiful flower of them all.
Because in the end, there will only be faith, hope and love.
And the greatest of these is LOVE . . .
Partners & Marriage by Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't
fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems
easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.
When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my
friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or
sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they
and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older
couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless
nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.
And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each
other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of
each other's foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked
myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other's
habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less
love each other?
The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental
compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want
the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good
relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.
Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds
you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You
need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to
involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what
is on the other side.
This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side
altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see
clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from
having any normal perception of what life would be like together.
The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize
they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and
fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get
swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.
This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction
immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter.
Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other's company over the long term.
If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a
healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other
laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can
always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is no
laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to
turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against
those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being
critical together.
After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people
first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of
them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions
they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world
becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't
accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the
daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If
you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will
not respect each other.
Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and
practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by
the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and
the practical, you must take care that the distance doesn't become an unbridgeable gap that
leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.
There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable
parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not
deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you
cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate
worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives
and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that
leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.
So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can
grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully
when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It
is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed
becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love
becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To
us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe.
Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it
begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom
will come.
If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the
wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative
transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of
the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger. It never occurred tome to question the dark
miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the
possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was
actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the
power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and
bitter.
But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow
accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand
touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two
separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They
remain separate, but they also become one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure
and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not
traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having
multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow
more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.
But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two
have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the
pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that
deepens that experience into something richer and more complex.
So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of
faith and it contains within it the power of transformation. If you believe in your heart that
you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can
resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the
strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be
ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage well
made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom...endlessly.
The Best Kind of Love by Annette Paxman Bowen I have a friend who is falling in love. She honestly claims the sky is
bluer.
Mozart moves her to tears. She has lost 15 pounds and looks like a
covergirl. "I
am young again!" she shouts exuberantly.
As my friend raves on about her new love, I've taken a good look at my old
one.
My husband of almost 20 years, Scott, has gained 15 pounds. Once a
marathonrunner, he now runs only down hospital halls. His hairline is
recedingand his body shows signs of long working hours and too many candy
bars. Yet he can still give me a certain look across a restaurant table and
Iwant to ask for the check and head home.
When my friend asked me "What will make this love last?" I ran through all
theobvious reasons: commitment, shared interests, unselfishness, physical
attraction, and communication.
Yet there's more. We still have fun. Spontaneous good times.Yesterday,
afterslipping the rubber band off the rolled newspaper, Scott flipped it
playfullyat me: this led to an all-out war. Last Saturday at the grocery,
wesplit the list and raced each other to see who could make it to the
checkoutfirst. Even washing dishes can be a blast. We enjoy simply being
together.
And there are surprises.
One time I came home to find a note on the front door that led me to
anothernote, then another, until I reached the walk-in closet. I opened
thedoor
to find Scott holding a "pot of gold" (my cooking kettle) and the "treasure"
of
a gift package. Sometimes I leave him notes on the mirror and littlepresents
under his pillow.
There is understanding.
I understand why he must play basketball with the guys. And he understands
why,
once a year, I must get away from the house, the kids - and even him -
tomeet
my sisters for a few days of nonstop talking and laughing.
There is sharing.
Not only do we share household worries and parental burdens - we also share
ideas. Scott came home from a convention last month and presented me with a
thick historical novel. Though he prefers thrillers and science fiction, he
had
read the novel on the plane. He touched my heart when he explained it was
because he wanted to be able to exchange ideas about the book after I'd read
it.
There is forgiveness.
When I'm embarrassingly loud and crazy at parties, Scott forgives me. When
he
confessed losing some of our savings in the stock market, I gave him a hug
and
said, "It's okay. It's only money."
There is sensitivity.
Last week he walked through the door with that look that tells me it's been
a
tough day. After he spent some time with the kids, I asked him what
happened.
He told me about a 60-year old woman that had a stroke. He wept as he
recalled
the woman's husband standing beside her bed, caressing her hand. How was he
going to tell this husband of 40 years that his wife would probably never
recover? I shed a few tears myself.
Because of the medical crisis.Because there were still people who have been
married 40 years. Because my husband is still moved and concerned after
years of
hospital rooms and dying patients.
There is faith.
Last Tuesday a friend came over and confessed her fear that her husband is
losing his courageous battle with cancer. On Wednesday I went to lunch with
afriend who is struggling to reshape her life after divorce. On Thursday a
neighbor called to talk about the frightening effects of Alzheimer's disease
on
her father-in-law's personality. On Friday a childhood friend called
long-distance to tell me her father had died. I hungup the phone and
thought,
This is too much heartache for one week.
Through my tears, as I went out to run some errands, I noticed the
boisterous
orange blossoms of the gladiolus outside my window. I heard the delighted
laughter of my son and his friend as they played. I caught sight of a
wedding
party emerging from a neighbor's house. The bride, dressed in satin and
lace,
tossed her bouquet to her cheering friends. That night, I told my husband
about
these events. We helped each other acknowledge the cycles of life and that
the
joys counter the sorrows. It was enough to keep us going.
Finally, there is knowing.
I know Scott will throw his laundry just shy of the hamper every night;
he'll be
late to most appointments and eat the last chocolate in the box. He knows
that I
sleep with a pillow over my head.
I guess our love lasts because it is comfortable. No, the sky is not bluer:
it's
just a familiar hue. We don't feel particularly young: we've experienced too
much that has contributed to our growth and wisdom, taking its toll on our
bodies, and created our memories. I hope we've got what it takesto make our
love
last. As a bride, I had Scott's wedding band engraved with Robert Browning's
line "Grow old along with me!"
We're following those instructions. "If anything is real, the heart will
make it
plain." There are some people who meet that somebody that they can never
stop
loving, no matter how hard they try. I wouldn't expect you to understand
that,
or even believe it, but trust me, there are some love that don't go away.
And
maybe that makes them crazy, but we should all be blessed to end up with
that
somebody who has a little of that insanity. Somebody who never lets
go.Somebody
who cherishes you forever.
Hope you find this kind of love in your life.
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