Honeymoon Blues

If I'm truly honest I'm scared of death. It's not that I lack faith or confidence in what I believe but rather that anything beyond my earthly existence just seems unpalatable to me. I can't comprehend the concept of living eternally, of living without suffering, the very idea of ultimate perfection seems strange to me.

I have just returned from two weeks of honeymoon. Our wedding was as perfect a day as you could wish for, followed by two weeks in the blissful weather of Southern Portugal with it's beautiful fresh fish and empty beaches. Then coming back to our new home together, unwrapping what seemed like endless gifts and cards. The feeling of euphoria is a little bit relentless at the moment. 

Just as we were about to go out for a lovely Portuguese meal one evening, my wife was sick. So instead of enjoying beautiful fried octopus and clams I settled for a cheese omelette, a beer and the sky remote. I ended up watching a BBC documentary about undertakers (what a cheery honeymoon we had...). The show followed the deaths of different people from different cultures: a Muslim man, a Mormon man, a woman with terminal cancer who attended her own funeral party and a man who died alone with sixteen cats and nobody at his funeral. It was fascinating to see how different faiths interact with death, how grieving and the pulling together of community seems to transcend differences in belief or theology. Everyone cries, everyone feels the emptiness of death, everyone feels the shortness of life, everyone rallies round the relatives of the deceased. I ended the night with a tear rolling down my face. I realised how scared I was of dying, I held Ellie's hand and for the first time realised that one day we would die.

It is true that my faith in Jesus Christ gives me ultimate hope of something beyond, but this is by no means an easy way out. It is often portrayed that faith is merely a denial of the finality of death, an emotional crutch for the weak- I don't find it to be so. Just the concept of something beyond I find puzzling at best, petrifying at worst. This life we live is simple, it makes sense, it is enjoyable. The idea of something else, something unknown is difficult to imagine or comprehend.  Perhaps my fear of death shows a little of my lack of faith, or lack of confidence in teachings of Christianity. Or maybe this fear is something that everyone feels deep down sometimes.

Life is precious, time ticks without us noticing, death is inevitable. My wedding and honeymoon gave me a feeling of invincibility, death seemed like a distant thing to me. The truth of the matter is that it is never far away, it will always come too soon. Life is both precarious and beautiful- if we cannot recognise this how can we ever live fully? How can we cherish every moment if we fail to recognise how precious each one is. Realising this gave me a new appreciation of the little things, it put my life on slow motion so that I might see the beauty of a taste, the intricacy of a blade of grass, the feeling of joy in my heart. How can we not live our lives with death in our minds? 

Ultimately all I have is trust. I do not believe in God because I want to live after I die, but rather I believe because I think that it is true- Jesus Christ shapes how I live, how I act, how I behave, he changes the lives of countless people around me. I have faith in his teaching, I have faith in his death and I have faith in his resurrection. But ultimately when it comes to my own resurrection, all I have is trust. It is like walking off the edge of a cliff in the dark- it scares me stiff. But ultimately I can hear a familiar and trustworthy voice on the other end: "I will catch you". 

I am scared, but I know that I can trust. 

My Wife's Home Town

I watched a Louis Theroux documentary about dementia earlier this week which had me on the brink of tears. It takes something pretty emotional to make me cry. There was a couple that he visited who were in their late eighties, they had been married for over sixty years. The wife, Nancy, had very severe Alzheimer's. Although she was perfectly articulate, loving and affectionate she had almost totally lost a grasp on her identity and her relationships. Her husband, John, cared for her regardless. In his own words: "we said we were going to be with each other until death do us part, and it hasn't parted us yet".

I'm getting married this summer. People are surprised when they first hear this. It's unusual for a guy in his very early twenties to be settling down so soon. People are even more surprised when they hear that we haven't 'tested' it first. We don't live together, don't have sex, don't know that it's definitely going to 'work'. It's almost foolishness in our culture to enter into marriage so recklessly. But I, like the eighty nine year old guy in the Louis Theroux documentary fully intend to take seriously my promises, take seriously the promises to commit to one person regardless. Regardless of how they change, who they become or how enjoyable it is.

Our society has made marriage something totally alien to this. We crave stories of love at first sight, soul mates and perfectly fulfilling marriages. I'd love to tell you that Ellie is perfect, that she is the most attractive, intelligent, gifted person on planet earth. Today everyone is looking for the perfect combination of soulmate/ babe. And I can tell you emphatically, that she hasn't got it. My fiance is not the perfect woman, she is not flawless, she isn't even close. But that's not why I'm marrying her. 

There are so many unrealistic expectations on modern relationships; and ultimately no one can fulfill you, no-one can complete you. The films, the media, our friends, all present a idealistic, romanticized picture of marriage. Find Mr Right, settle down, job done. This view of marriage has made it wholly self-centered; it is so much about how I am completed by this person, how I feel, how my life is improved. It is no wonder that marriage is becoming a flailing concept in the consumerist west. With such high expectations, no wonder so many marriages fail. 

There is a moment in Theroux's documentary when Nancy looks at her husband in the eye and says: "I owe you so much." She's so right, this man has relentlessly cared for her, given to her, sacrificed his whole life for her. And he turns to her and replies "No Nancy, we owe each other so much." It is a beautiful picture of marriage: two individuals totally sacrificed to one another. He is not merely caring for his wife, they are totally submitted to one another; he could do no other. 

Marriage is not about gaining. It is about giving; wholeheartedly giving to another human being. Sacrificing ambition, hopes and goals and rediscovering life as a joined entity; a family. And ultimately marriage is about transformation, a life lived looking outwards rather than inwards. Tim Keller puts it like this:

"The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the gospel...We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. "

I believe that marriage is a sacred and beautiful thing that I am ridiculously excited for. There will be times of unbearable pain, I'm sure, but I hope that our relationship is a picture of true commitment and sacrifice to one another. And for that, I cannot wait. 

Marry You

So on Sunday night I proposed to the beautiful Ellie. She did not see it coming. Even though we'd spent all weekend talking about weddings with her family, she was not expecting it as soon as we got back. Some very good friends of mine had set the room of our favorite coffee shop up beautifully with photographs of us both, yellow roses, a bottle of champagne (or cheap M&S cava), our favorite food and coffee and then more candles than you've ever seen in your life. I got down on one knee and asked a woman to spend the rest of her life with me, after a few tears and five minutes or so of euphoria it started to become quite difficult to breathe. Turns out it wasn't overwhelming excitement, but rather quite a lot of toxic smoke. I turned round to see my beautiful wool coat and rucksack full of my favorite clothes and books up in flames.

So you could say that my romantic plans weren't quite executed perfectly. My worldly possessions went up in flames as I made a commitment to spend the rest of my life trying to care for one person.

The ritual of marriage is seen as pretty outdated in our society today- but let me tell you, I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with one woman- give everything I have to making our marriage work, even when it's pretty tough.The bible uses the imagery of marriage quite often to refer to his Church. The 'bride' of Christ (the Church) will one day meet the bridegroom (Christ) and be united for eternity in a new creation. And that in my mind is a pretty good piece of symbolism for belonging to the Church, for having faith.

We need to realise sometimes that committing to God to have faith in Christ and become part of his bride is not always 'feel good', it requires sacrifice. In order to leap fully into following Christ, we have to let go of what we're holding. And sometimes we have to see things we are attached to go up in flames. Sometimes this is our stuff; I think of a rich guy in the Bible who wanted to follow Jesus but couldn't give up his possessions. Sometimes it's our ambition. Jesus even tells us that following him will result in people we love turning against us.

I think too often we over glamorize commitment. I know full well that I will have to give up some of my ambition, some of my money, some of my stuff in order to love Ellie fully and be fully committed to her. I know that sometimes she will do my head in, sometimes I will feel like giving it up. But that's not the point. The point of marriage isn't that I find someone who can make me euphoric for the next sixty years, but I do believe that the sacrifice I make to commit to her will be worth it. And it's the same with faith. We might paint 'conversion' as a glorious thing, and rightly so- but there is a cost of faith, there is a cost of belonging to the Church. Jesus says:

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

I am challenged by those words. Ultimately I know that Jesus is more trustworthy than Ellie is. I know that commitment to him is worth it. But it means letting go of things, letting go of my self centered attitude. Interestingly Jesus claims the two most important things you can do with your life is to "Love God" and "Love others", that is a total reversal of the strongest instruction of culture: "Love yourself". Faith means taking my eyes off myself, letting go of what I'm holding and committing to someone who is worth placing trust in.

I don't pretend that is easy. I have to daily struggle to do that. In a strange way I'm kind of glad my stuff went up in flames, as irritating as it was, it gave me a sense of perspective. Compared to spending the rest of my life with Ellie, a wool coat is nothing. Compared to being a part of the Bride of Christ for eternity, what I have in my hands is nothing.