If Life Imitated Art

How marvelous it would be if life were to more closely imitate art. How blissfully sweet our existence if love were to live up its reputation in song and cinema! But most of us have learned that the blessed intersection of eros and agape involves a maturation process none of us could have imagined in our star struck years.

Time and experience are our mentors, to be sure. Having been married now forty years, my dear wife and I have settled into a comfortable relationship, the essence of which we could not have fathomed in our twenties. We have endured much together, and quite naturally, we have come to rely on one another. The depth of our mutual devotion is rooted in the confidence of our love for each other, giving rise to a quiet and reassuring predictability of our life together. Not at all a bad thing, I submit.

Perhaps to her credit, my companion of four decades has consented to indulge me in my sometimes quixotic notions more times than I can count, and I am grateful for it. Clearly, her devotion has not been without peril to herself. If I am honest, I have to confess that I still display a kind of naiveté when it comes to accurately assessing the likely pitfalls of certain enterprises, not the least of which has been my career path: I am a second-career clergyperson.  

As a child, I remember my grandmother softly singing as she stood at the kitchen sink:

Oh, come to the church in the wildwood
Come to the church in the dale
No place is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale.

I never knew such a church, except for my grandmother’s singing. Certainly, I have never served such a congregation. But I daresay I have longed for that idyllic vision on some level, a sacred place where the grace of God shines through and is abundantly evident in the affirming personal relationships I can only imagine. Remember what I said about my naiveté!  

The present moment is very challenging for me, taking its toll on both soul and psyche. My wife, who has had monumental challenges of her own of late, is hugely affected. She weathers the storm better than I do sometimes, but I regret having exposed her to the trauma.

Life is messy, to be sure, and faithfully following one’s vocation is not without discomfort. But I know that nothing stays the same and that God will act, as God always does. It’s just a matter of when. If only life were a bit more like art.