This Saturday my wife, Stephanie, and I will celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary. In celebration, we will be enjoying a long weekend getaway. As such, I will be taking Friday off which is why you are receiving this week’s Inspiration a tad early.
Funny, but it does not seem that the journey we’ve enjoyed together has actually been this many years. I am sure that both of us would observe independently that our marriage has not been a consistently idyllic union. Enduring commitments seldom come with complete and total ease. But our togetherness has brought us countless moments of exquisite excitement and, as we have grown and matured through the years, we have learned together, if not perfectly, the virtues of patience, tolerance, and understanding.
Time has also brought us to an understanding an appreciation of how much we need each other to be complete. I think that, early on, our immaturity led us to believe that an enduring loving relationship is one in which each party changes into the other. Such expectation is doomed to failure and frustration. In fact, neither of us has lost our individuality. Instead, with each passing year, we have come to realize the truth and value in these words Khalil Gibran wrote in his masterpiece, The Prophet:
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
What we’ve learned, as most veterans of committed relationships discover, albeit not without challenge, is that a great marriage is not when the “perfect couple” comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences. Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, are life-altering lessons that, once learned, serve to open the doors of wonder in all aspects of one’s experience. Certainly that is true in marriage.
Each successful partnership is unique, so it would be presumptuous of me to advocate a standard set of values that would ensure happiness and longevity, but in honor of our milestone and in tribute to the love my wife has generously bestowed upon me for so many years, I offer the following excerpt from the poem “Blessings of a Marriage” written by James Dillet Freeman that I believe describes the roots that have anchored our initial attraction such that it could grow with time into the towering and majestic love it is today.
May you need one another, but not out of weakness.
May you want one another, but not out of lack.
May you entice one another, but not compel one another.
May you embrace one another, but not encircle one another.
May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces.
May you look for things to praise, often say, “I love you!” and take no notice of small faults.If you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back.
May you enter into the mystery which is the awareness of one another’s presence –
no more physical than spiritual, warm and near when you are side by side,
and warm and near when you are in separate rooms or even distant cities.
May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy.
May you find love, and may you find it loving one another.And finally,
May you come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.
Happy anniversary, my love!
Now, let’s have an AWE-full weekend!
William J. “Bill” Bacque