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My wife Lou Alice and I got married twenty-five years ago today. I won't say we were children, but we were barely not-children, and we hardly knew what we were promising to do, but we promised anyway. Then we went home and started trying to figure out how to make a life together.
I have often heard that marriage is hard work. I don't disagree. To borrow a phrase from the philosophers, however, hard work is necessary but not sufficient. In any creative endeavor (and a marriage is a greater creative endeavor than War and Peace and the Sistine Chapel combined), the real work is to make room for grace to intervene, to have eyes to see see the deeper truth, to stay alive to the fact that a reality we didn't make will triumph every time over the shriveled and shriveling narratives of self-absorption.
Every year I return to this poem, which Richard Wilbur wrote as a wedding toast to his son and daughter-in-law:
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Wedding Toast
St. John tells how, at Cana’s wedding feast,
The water-pots poured wine in such amount
That by his sober count
There were a hundred gallons at the least.
It made no earthly sense, unless to show
How whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to a sweet excess
That can without depletion overflow.
Which is to say that what love sees is true;
That this world’s fullness is not made but found.
Life hungers to abound
And pour its plenty out for such as you.
Now, if your loves will lend an ear to mine,
I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter.
May you not lack for water,
And may that water smack of Cana’s wine.
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Earlier I said that Lou Alice and I went home twenty-five years ago to figure out how to make a life together. One thing I think we have figured out in the mean time is that we weren't making a life so much as finding one--uncovering it from beneath the rubble of self-protection and self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence and self-promotion and self-centeredness. When life feels full, it's not because we have managed to fill it, but because we are learning to receive its fullness.
Friends, what love sees is true. That's not wishful thinking. That is an old married person telling the truth as literally as he knows how to tell it.
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Free Webinar:
Understanding Audience
Thursday, May 24.
7:30-8:30 pm (Central)
There are lots of reasons to write. One of the best reasons is to introduce a story or subject matter you love to readers you love. In this live, interactive webinar, we talk about what it means to love your reader, exploring some healthy ways to think about your audience.
Topics to be covered:
- Envisioning your reader
- Writing for a community
- Writing for yourself while also writing for an audience
- Questions submitted by participants.
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Online Fiction Workshop
May 27 - June 21
A four-week intensive on fiction-writing. You will work on a single story (20 pages max) for the whole four weeks, writing and rewriting, getting feedback from Jonathan as well as from your fellow writers.
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Coming Up in Field Notes for Writers
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The Field Notes Book Club is starting Bird by Bird on May 21.
Field Notes members receive a 10% discount on the upcoming Fiction Workshop. (That $50 savings pays for more than a third of the cost of annual membership.)
To join this community of like-minded writers, gain access to the ever-growing library of content, and receive discounts on Jonathan's premium online classes subscribe to Field Notes for Writers.
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