The Great Gap Between Light and Life

It's easy to get excited when somebody talks about love as "self-gift."  We all want to give ourselves, holding nothing back for the one we love.  The desire to heroically lay our lives down for another is written into every cell in our bodies, which is why boys fantasize about being superheros and girls fantasize about getting married and being mothers even at a very young age.  It's why sports and romantic movies will always make billions of dollars.  "Self-gift" is an idea we are intrinsically drawn to intensely, and even the most brilliant thinkers, like St. John Paul II, can't say enough about it.  For the moment, let's call this truth we're made for, "light."

When I was engaged and first married, I really think I could have exploded with my excitement over the potential for self-gift that I was about to experience.  I had, of course, dreamed of being a unique, unrepeatable superhero since I was young, and had spent the past few years intensely studying the Church's teachings on love and marriage. Now I had direction, a particular person for whom I could pour myself out in sacrifice, holding nothing back like the martyrs of old, or Spiderman.  It was kind of like dreaming about playing football for my favorite team, and now I was dressed out and geared up, and the coach had called my name to get into the game.  I, of course, was going to make a diving catch into the endzone as the clock ran out.  However, reality was much more like getting run over, the wind knocked out of me, and needing a water break after just a few plays without much to show for it.  For now, we'll call the reality of what is actually happening "life."  

I could have never expected just how much real sacrifice "laying my life down" was going to take.  One of the factors that took me by surprise was just how different my wife and I were.  I realized that I kind of expected that our intense love for each other and the grace of the Sacrament of Matrimony would give us mind-melding power. 

I was sorely mistaken.  As a matter of fact, we felt more like strangers in another country where we don't speak the same language, and we don't know the culture.  If you've ever been in a foreign country, you know that after just a few days, it wears on you big time.  You feel exhausted, and you wish you could just spend a few minutes with someone who understands you.  And, you often begin to resent the people, the language, and the culture because it takes so much energy and focus to operate wtihin that context day in and day out.  Marriage is very, very much like this at times.  

Learning the "language" and "culture" of our spouses certainly helps, but it's amazing how despite all of our efforts and patience, we can never fully enter into what it means to be the other.  It's as if God made us male and female so we'd never really be able to understand each other.  Interestingly, it may help to remember that the meaning of the word "mystery," especially when it's used by the Church, is different than we often think.  Usually we hear the word, "mystery" and think it must refer to something we can't know, so we  shouldn't waste our time trying to figure it out.  Instead, it actually refers to something we should dive into, surrendering everything, because we'll never reach the bottom of the beauty, dignity, and awesomeness of it.  Our spouses are truly a "mystery" in the latter sense, though we often put them in the category of "unknowable."  In reality, the "Light" of this truth is dazzling!  However, the possibility of "diving into" the mystery of our spouses isn't always so attractive in practice, or in "Life."

Despite my deep, intrinsic desires to heroically go all out, holding nothing back for the sake of the mystery, the "other-ness," of my spouse, the fatigue of the journey gets to me.  I get tired, and the demands of life don't stop despite my efforts to ignore them.  And, naturally, when I am tired, my tendency is toward self-preservation and defense against anything that demands my energy.  

So, although reading things like the Theology of the Body and watching movies like Cinderella Man (Depression-era boxing champ, does it all for his family) make me ready to endure the cross and grave for my wife and kids, the gap between "Light" and "Life" looms large as soon as the demands of my wife's other-ness are more than I expected.  If it were one thing at a time, one need at a time, I might be able to respond better.  Unfortunately, though, I'm hit with the truth that I don't have the capacity to love with the love of God, a self-giving love that truly holds nothing back regardless of the circumstances, and is perfectly timed and perfectly fruitful.

When I'm faced with my own limitations, my impatience, my blaming it all on her or the kids, my immaturity, laziness, and raw selfishness, it can get very discouraging.
However, I have been given a promise, and I'm getting better at depending on it rather than beating myself up and feeling like a victim of my own limitations.  The promise is this:

"I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them." (Ez 36:26-27)

And which "ordinances" will His spirit, His heart allow me to observe?

“ 'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?'  Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  (Mt 26:36-38)