My aim, when starting this blog was to write a minimum of one blog weekly. ...and yet I find I am struggling with this very modest goal. The need for balancing Prayer and Dishes, not to mention every other thing under the sun is as great as ever, and my success rate is as low as ever! I also was determined to always have something in mind when I opened up the post. This, too, has not been the case. I don't want to write simply for the sake of hitting a target. But I don't want to avoid this blog because I feel as though I have nothing to say when I have the time to say it!
Well... no great thoughts loom in my head, but it is time to write, so I will relate a small experience I had today. After church, my husband and I were invited to a dinner which included 7 other couples...all of which have known each other for about 25 years! It was a true kindness to be invited, and in no way did we feel we were condescended to or ignored. However, the facts of the case had the two of us there more as observers than anything else.
I have been (and will be) doing a great deal of reading on the differences between men and women, and how these effect the most basic relationships of all...marriage. As I stood to one side, my 48 year old self being the youngest by a good 15 years, I was amazed at how competent these good farm women were. In all honesty, I am usually intimidated by other women. Their comfort level in any kitchen; their down-home bossiness that gets things done without being offensive; their instinctive dance around each other and the various tasks that take place in a kitchen...all the while catching up, keeping an eye on their husbands and making sure that all are comfortable.
And then the meal. I can't remember the last time I witnessed the women holding back while the men charged into line. There was need, and they all knew it, for the men to go first. They would be seated at the end of the dining room from which there was no escape! The women Needed to serve themselves last so that they could easily get up from the table when required to do so.
So, obviously, the men all ended up at one end, the women at the other. There was no jockeying for a place in the conversation. The women talked about what they wanted to, including their husbands as part of the stories they told. The men spoke of what interested them...mostly feed, machinery and the economy. It was delicious...and I don't simply mean the food.
This group of farming couples, hard-working, honest and worthy had learned that there is no shame in the differences between them. Again, as an "observer" I caught glances between spouses. They were fond, twinkling almost...even when the story being told involved the exasperation married couples feel for each other. (Each spouse seemed to be able to participate fully in the "men's" conversation, or the "ladies' conversation, while keeping an ear out for the voice of their mate!) There was an over-all acceptance that, all in all, this business of marriage is worth every hardship; that the differences that annoy, when woven into a tale several days later, usually evoke laughter. Every wife understands the stubbornness of a man, every man understands the exasperation of a nagging wife. We put up with it out of commitment, sometimes out of habit...but when we're honest about it, perhaps we put up with it because it shines a light on our differences...those deep down things that makes our Spouse the Other, our Complement.
I don't mean to make light of sin in our relationships. We should be striving always to live in true charity with our husbands, and they with us. But how often could I save myself some heartache, by simply accepting that we are different, we will always be different, and our marriage is the tool by which these differences form us into a Unity that can be sublimely wonderful.
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