eThoughts : Awareness, Experience, Grace, and Creation

I went to a wedding today and afterwards I came home and watched the movie Tuesdays with Morrie, based on a book written by Mitch Albom. My oldest daughter gave me the book to read about a month ago, but I’ve not done it yet–having forgotten about it in the midst of a lot of work. That’s pretty funny considering what the story is about.

Both of today’s events stirred up a lot of emotions.

The wedding ceremony was not my style, but during the exchange of rings I was deeply touched. After I was first married, it was a long time before I ever wore a wedding ring, but when I finally got one, it meant a lot to me. Taking it off when I realized the marriage was over–that was tough. Then I got married again, and once more embraced the symbol and the reality of the ring. And again, when I realized the marriage was over, I removed the ring. It was even harder than the first time. Now twice thwarted, it was not only as though I had trekked across a desert to find the long-promised oasis, yet was turned back by some invisible, unbreakable barrier, but that I had recovered and tried again–only to be faced with the same outcome.

Maybe I’m a sentimentalist, maybe a romantic, maybe a bit delusional, maybe a bit of all those things. I know this, being a man is no protection. In fact, in this culture, as in many, being a man means going it alone–there is little if any support system.

And then I rallied for the third time and began romance again. This time there was no marriage, though we had talked a lot about it–and the rings that might go with it. But, it was not to be. The oasis remains there, clearly visible, yet seemingly unattainable.

All right, I’ve written about this stuff in Renewal. Revisiting it yet again may seem a bit indulgent, but it may also be part of the strengthening process. That’s what it feels like, so I’m going with it.

Sometimes the love remains even when the people don’t. Sometimes, even in the absence of apparent support, there is still nurturing. Sometimes in our stories, especially in ones like the wedding or a movie, it is easy to forget that endings do not finish a story.

In the movie Tuesdays With Morrie, the Hollywood, rather than the book story about Morrie and Mitch, and of Mitch’s wife, Janine, there is support, even if it is about males, and there is love that comes back together, which Mitch and Janine accomplished in the movie. And that is what I’d like to make the story of the wedding I attended today–that it will endure and thrive and that the rings and the love will always be there.

For many of us, life is not so neat as a story with an ending. The stories of life are more about beginnings than endings. And for many of us, our romantic stories, unlike that of Mitch Albom’s, could be seen as fractured–our ring fingers remain naked as do our hearts. It is a life exposed and vulnerable.

That does not make it a finished story, one to lament, but rather a story about how to love even when setting things right is not up to us, it is about how to die when we are powerless to avoid much of anything but the intent to live, die, and to love with humble and grateful dignity.

I would rather have a beginning without an end, and maybe I have. In any case, it has not come as the fabled romantic story that somewhere we’ve learned brings to a glorious, climatic finale, the story of our lonely sadness.

Whether the song is of love found or of love lost, it’s the story of our heart. And such a heart cannot be so hard that it cannot forever be touched–even if it is not forever held.

My heart goes out to Morrie, and Mitch and Janine (it doesn’t matter to me if the story is fictional, there is truth in the story), and to the wedded couple today, and to all of those who have touched my life and taught me about love. Whether they have left joy or sorrow is not up to them, it is up to me. And perhaps, in the beginnings, it is not so sad, even if it seems that way, to hold dear those we love, even when they are not present to feel that embrace.