A Legendary Marriage

The following is a "blog formatted" version of a thing I did for our Valentine's banquet at our church last year. I have felt so impacted lately by the marriages of some great couples in my life, and I just wanted to share this in honor of them. This will have to be a "series" as well because it is looong. I have issues with this. On the bright side, I cut my "Warning Labels" series to just 2 parts... so there is hope in this blogger's world. 

 

A Legendary Marriage

     I want to tell you some stories. Stories of fabled romance, mystery, adventure…and don’t worry men, there will be some “blood and guts” along the way to keep you entertained… I will tell mythical tales of wonder and excitement that speak of the love between a man and a woman, the knight and his damsel, warrior and his maiden. Tales of vows made, courage tested, battles won, beauty claimed. This is the stuff that dreams are made of. I will tell you the story of a Legendary Marriage.  

     “Legendary”, some of you know that my family kind of likes that word. We use it more often than most people… and we often use it out of context. It actually started as a game to see who could use the word the most in a conversation with a stranger. We like to refer to ourselves as “legendary” often, and we just like to say it. It rolls off the tongue so well...”legendary”… It really is a great word. But, what exactly, does it mean? It can mean, famous, well renowned, or it can mean, the stuff of legends… and a definition for legends, that I think applies appropriately is, “tales retold for generations but unlikely to be entirely true…”. And so, I suggest to you in this moment, that "Only time separates reality from legend".

     Let us look now at our first legendary story of love, and bring back the realities that time has replaced. The first story, is in the beginning…Come with me for a moment if you will…. On a journey. A journey back in time… to the first earthly union, to the first marriage, in it’s first moments of creation. When Adam first met Eve. Can you imagine the moment? Adam has just opened his eyes, and there before him is a beautiful creature. This woman, that God had fashioned just for him, from him. Imagine Adam laying eyes upon this strange, and yet, somehow familiar creature. And yet, hold the phone… Not so familiar creature…

Oh the wonder! The sight!

But, let’s pause there…and look through Eve’s eyes. She has awakened to the sight of a creature, who looks so familiar, and yet, so different. She is confused for a moment, and yet amazingly not… and then slightly troubled by the feral gleam in his eyes, and yet not. Drawn to him, and yet not. Oh, what to say, what to say… what to say? What is he thinking? 
     Back to Adam as our journey continues. Adam has taken note of the differences in Eve from himself, and is beginning to move toward her to introduce himself by exploring those differences, and immediately begins to name them (after all, that is his job). He is the official namer.

     Back to Eve –“I wonder what he thinks of me?” She checks her breath quickly...“Oh, he can’t see me like this, I feel as if this stuff on my head is too messy…”

     Back to Adam’s thoughts. "Touch, Beauty. Name".

     Eve. "Does he speak? Do I speak? I’d better be able to speak!" 
Alas, language has not come into existence yet, and what comes out is just a series of guttural grunts. Adam, having used his voice for naming animals, recognizes the noise coming from her mouth, but does not understand what she is saying… she begins making wild motions with her hands… and he gets more confused…and so… it begins….

     This my friends, is what was left out of the creation account. Oh, I know the fall from free love luau to fig leaves, was later, and sin entered the world then. But I am here to suggest that the minute Adam and Eve first met, there was a clash of two different human designs, that in itself was perfect. A perfect creation of fire and ice, that would mold and meld into a perfect union of one, through the power of a master-crafter. And the first Legendary Romance is born…

     What is it that is so legendary about certain famous couples throughout history and in myths?

Let’s look at some of the most famous ones with a realistic eye…

  Romeo & Juliet – the first love story most people think of and has become synonymous with love itself… But why? He thinks he loves some Rosaline chick, sees Juliet once and they decide to marry the next day. A couple days later they’ve both killed themselves because they thought the other one was dead. And to top it off, the play ends with the bad rhyme, “for never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo”. Tragic.

Cleopatra & Mark Antony – More tragic death over the supposed death of the other (notice a theme here in many love stories)… tried to take over Rome together, the original real estate power couple…

Tristan & Isolde – NOT married… Tristan is so dumb he marries someone else just because her name sounds like Isolde… good reason. She turns out to be a liar and everyone dies of broken hearts.

Paris and Helen – From Homer’s Iliad. NOT married… Starts a war, people die. The movie lied, Paris abducted her and when Troy is destroyed she lives happily the rest of her life with her husband Menelaus…but that’s okay because Orlando Bloom was a real wimp anyway.

Napoleon and Josephine – fell deeply in love out of a marriage of convenience, but that didn’t deter adultery on both sides – he left her because she couldn’t produce an heir. Their love fell short.(get it? Napoleon was short! ha!)

Odysseus and Penelope – Greek pair. He dies at war, but she still refuses 108 suitors while waiting for him to return. He refuses everlasting love and eternal youth from a sorceress so that he might return home. The story does not go on to tell you how many times later she reminded him of “all the men she could have chosen”.

Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler – Frankly, my dear…. I can’t understand why he married her in the first place…

Jane Eyre and Rochester – Bronte’s famous tale of love between a rich man and his governess who are to marry, but wait, he’s already married!

Eloise and Abelard – a true story of a boy and girl who were secretly married, torn apart, he is castrated, becomes a monk, and she a nun.

Pyramus and Thisbe – Basically another Romeo and Juliet.. forbidden love, mistaken death, both die in the end.. someone really needs to wait and make SURE the other person is really dead before they off themselves… These tragedies are really more stories of stupid people who don’t know how to check for pulses…

Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy – Well… okay, this IS a love story… I mean, I’m sorry, it’s Jane Austen for pete’s sake. Sigh…

Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal – She was his “favorite” wife…and he built her the Taj Mahal, AFTER she died. NOT legendary.

Marie and Pierre Curie – Finally, a relationship that didn’t involve poison…Partners in love and science, they discovered radioactivity together…. now that’s romantic. I’m sure they had their melt-downs though…

And finally, my own addition – Wesley and Buttercup – the story ended well as it was written, but I believe the giant Fezzik moved in with them like a free-loading relative and made life miserable.

As you can see, some of the most legendary romances of all time were really full of challenges, pain, tragedies… Why? Because, “only time separates reality from Legend”. Can we see our real marriages from the distance that it takes, to be able to see the legend? 

To be continued.....