Newspaper Columns by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Love as adventure
Evolution a key component of all ‘holy unions’
By Bishop Paul V. Marshall
June, 2005From a meeting with Canadian bishops last month, I concluded an email to my wife, “I love you although/because that is an adventure.”
Diana is an understanding sort. She knew I meant that in a good way. But here I explain.
We seek a beloved who provides a secure base from which to explore life, someone with whom to share ecstasy, and an ally in the face of challenges. This is gift not everyone receives.
The adventure begins with remembering that the beloved is not an “object,” not even an “object of affection.” They remain a person with will, agenda, and possibilities. To engage another truly and devotedly is not about freeze-drying a desirable set of characteristics with those deadly words, “Don’t go changing.”
To love involves respecting what one contemplates, admires, and cherishes in the other’s person and development. The very first Book of Common Prayer (1549) had it right: “With my body I thee worship.” That sentiment is profoundly intimate; it also sets a boundary. We cannot truly worship and possess. Only idols do not change.
To love someone includes fostering their growth and applauding their increasing knowledge of who and what they are. Love includes binding their wounds as they struggle to work out their salvation. While this is indeed adventure, sometimes challenging, it is also joy to see the beloved becoming someone more complete, more beautiful to behold.
Patiently making room for God’s Spirit on a daily non-spectacular basis is one of the disciplines of loving until death do us part. It is not often comfortable but it is often rewarding. I can only hope that my own evolution has brought Diana more joy than pain. She has certainly rolled with the punches.
So it is both because and although loving is an adventure that I love and know that it is the sticking it out for life that gives the joy its depth.
If what I have written is at all accurate about our most intimate relationships, I must ask what in the world Saint Paul was thinking when he wrote to the Ephesians that the spousal relation pointed to Christ and the Church. He uses the counter-cultural language of mutual submission, leaving space for the other to be, and honoring who and what they are. The posture of mutual submission is not one of demand or domination, but of service and flexibility.
Only this insight makes it possible for me to read church history without walking away from church or otherwise flinching; beyond the simple confession that Jesus is Lord, I can find nothing in our tradition that has not substantially evolved.
In taking the Church to himself, Christ took a spouse who would continually evolve, like any spouse. He must rejoice in that, as he abets it, having already said, “and you will do greater works than these.”
In the Christian tradition, including that of protestant hymnody, both the individual soul and the Church are portrayed in the language of a spousal relationship with Christ. This is, indeed, a great mystery: the loving maintenance of relationship as parties grow and change over the years is at the core of what the prayer book calls our “holy union.”
Should we not also expect that both God and the Church will remain in process? A God whom scripture recalls saying, “Behold, I do a new thing,” may offer change when I want permanence and peace, may offer bread when I want a stone. How like a lover!
People get hitched (as the Duchess of Cornwall put it) or come to religion looking for a sense of security and companionship. Much less commonly we come looking for adventure and change. We may not welcome what is inevitable.
The marriage analogy in Ephesians reminds us of our continued vulnerability to surprise and delight, neither of which can be predicted or institutionalized.
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