A Love for All Seasons
I AM A "SOME DAY" jogger — some days I do, and some days I don't. Today was one of my "do" days, and it felt so good it almost convinced me I should jog every day... but not quite. We have had an unusually mild and lingering fall in Washington this year, the kind that draws one out of doors and makes even jogging a joy. However, one of these days the season will change... we can count on that. Winter will arrive, and I will be very content to jog through the upstairs hall, or even in place by the side of our bed.
Yes, winter will come, and that is good. There is a rhythm, a dependability, about the seasons that brings a sense of well-being to me. Something in the cycle says, "This is natural, this is right. This is as it should be." And as it is with the seasons of a year, so it is with the seasons of life — especially married life. Each season has its own purpose, its own beauty, its dark days and its bright days. Each season is meant to be lived fully, without wishing for one that is past or reaching for one that lies ahead.
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Recently I was talking to someone who was researching an article on women. The interviewer asked me, "Aren't you sorry that you gave up all those early years? First you were an actress, and now you are writing — but in between there were so many lost years when all you did was have a family."
Lost?
"No, I'm not sorry!" I said. "Those were great years, and I wouldn't have missed them for anything. That was a season in my life — one I enjoyed to the fullest." I meant every word.
Married life does have its seasons. We change, and the demands on our time and energies change. New gifts emerge, familiar ones diminish. And this is all part of the cycle, part of the good plan of God.
Being aware that there are seasons, and that one season doesn't last forever, helps a person to live fully in the Now of life. It helps a person to appreciate the challenge and beauty of today... At the same time it provides patience for the difficult times.
For instance, in the season of early marriage, when children are little and parents are up much of the night, sometimes every night, for weeks or months, it helps to know that this will not always be their life-style. So during the years when the children need their parents' physical appearance, the parents can give themselves to those demands without resistance, knowing that it will end all too soon.
With four babies under the age of five, I was pretty
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housebound for years. I remember my mother-in-law assuring me when she visited us that although "no one is more tired than a young mother, this, too, will pass." She was a great help to me... and when she told me that she used to fall asleep when she put her children to bed at night, I smiled — because the same thing was happening to me. But I could see that Mother had made it through those years and was, in fact, radiantly enjoying a new season in her life.
Yes, the early marriage years are full of hard work and production... the building of a career and a home. If the husband is the chief wage earner — and in most marriages, he still is (he usually is learning to specialize) — he may have to put aside some of his favorite pastimes and interests in order to develop those that are important to his work. Building a career consumes much of a man's time and energy at this time of life... but he also has a new life partner. And if a couple have children, they face the challenge of being parents... and these relationships deserve "prime time" as much as the career.
When children are young, a mother needs to give much of herself to them. But that doesn't mean she should leave her husband out of it all! It is that task of both parents to fill the emotional baskets of each child... to give each one the love, time and commitment he or she needs to live life fully. Together, it is hoped, they will share life in a way so honest and real that it will earn them the right to share the riches of Christ
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with their children as they live life together.
Giving our children the commitment they need is good... orienting our total lives around them is not. There is a lack of health and wholeness in a totally child-oriented home. Dr. Alfred A. Nesser, of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, says: "Perhaps the most significant element in the dissolution of long-standing marriages is a consequence of living in the century of the child."
Children feel secure when they know their parents love each other. A couple's commitment to each other assures their children that they are part of a strong, loving, enduring relationship. And it is a relationship that frees, for as the children grow, they are not bound by it. When the home does not rotate solely around the children, the burden of the parents' happiness does not rest on their shoulders — nor does the home fall apart when the children leave. And so in this early season of marriage, a husband and wife should give their children all that is rightfully theirs — yet they must know that each comes first in the other's affections. "Mommy" and "Daddy" they may be to their children, but, one hopes, not to each other! Marriage begins with a man and a woman and ends the same way. A couple who are partners first, then parents, will not be neglecting their children... they will be nourishing them. They also will be building a strong basis for the seasons yet to come in their life together.
With such a heavy emphasis on production and work
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in the early years, a marriage needs a little "theology of play" to balance the relationship. "The family that prays together stays together" is also true when you substitute "plays" for "prays." In fact, if it's all "pray" and no "play," there could be trouble ahead — the children are likely to bolt.
Some couples, because of their backgrounds, are naturals at play — others have to work at it until it becomes natural for them. Sometimes one member of the team is better at play than the other. In our marriage, Louie has the gift of play, and at one point many years ago I had to ask him to teach me. I had worked from the time I was twelve... at full-time summer jobs and part-time jobs during the school year. What I earned was not much, but my mother worked so hard to provide for us that the little I did earn was appreciated. That felt good, and somewhere along the line I became a bit of a "workaholic." Louie, on the other hand, had a more carefree childhood — not without responsibilities, but with lots of time and space for play. He also had a brother and two sisters close to his age — three marvelous people as well as ready-made playmates — whereas I was an only child. Ever since I have known my husband I have been fascinated with his stories of the family trips.. the fun... the neighborhood boys and girls, and the mischief they got into together. Those early years served Louie well, for today if he has a free hour, he knows how to use it for fun... and he has literally taken me by the hand to show me the way.
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When we were first married Louie took me back-packing into the High Sierra in California. Our packs were homemade, our gear the simplest possible, but what a good time we had! I wasn't "taught" to love the high country — I "caught" it, and have had a strong case of mountain fever ever since. Not that I don't like creature comforts when I'm down off the mountain and I've been known to smuggle whatever creature comforts I could squeeze into our packs — but the lack of them cannot keep me from the high place. This is a gift I would never have found on my own, a gift Louie brought to our marriage and to our family life.
My husband also taught me to leave a stack of dishes in the sink whenever the rest of the family was ready to take off for a good time. How many times he had to say, "Come on, Cokie, if we don't leave now, we'll miss the beginning of the movie." The first few times he did it, he almost had to pull me away from the sink, but with practice it has become easier for me. Besides, I've learned that if I insist on a perfect kitchen, I'll miss more than the "beginning" — I'll miss the fun!
I'm surprised that so many people lack the capacity for fun and leisure. Perhaps, like me, they need someone to care enough to teach them. Learning to play is an investment, not only in the present, but in the future as well.
When a friend called me recently to tell me, tearfully, that her youngest children had just gone off to college, I thought I understood. "Oh, Sally, you're sad," I said,
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but before I could say another word, she interrupted me with, "Sad? Who said anything about being sad? I'm crying because I'm so happy!" Ah, yes, a new season in her life was just beginning. Sally had been happy as a mother with a very full nest (six children), and now she was excited about stepping into a new season — one that included a very interesting, creative career for her.
Not all of us feel the way Sally does — some of us are afraid — and I can understand. Being at home with a family, demanding as it is, is like being in a comfortable, warm nest. We are familiar with its needs, and from our vantage point the world outside appears to be bristling with responsibilities we feel we may not be able to handle. And so some of us hold back, letting our gifts for this season go undiscovered. Perhaps, because it gives us a feeling of protection, we cling to a submissive role, encouraging our husbands to assume responsibility for our lives.
Protection? From what? From another of God's rich seasons? We do not have to be afraid. We are created to grow, to mature, to adapt.
Many of my friends — especially those who married early — are going back to school. One woman is going to school at night, taking one course at a time. Another is going to the same university her son attends... They wave to each other in the halls. These women are not resisting the middle years... they are excitedly preparing for them.
The middle years are full of potential. They are what
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Ruell Howe calls "The Creative Years." They also are demanding years, as Robert Raines so poignantly describes them in his poem:
Middle-agers are beautiful!
aren't we Lord?
I feel for us
too radical for our parents
too reactionary for our kids
supposedly in the prime of life
like prime rib
everybody eating off me
devouring me
nobody thanking me
appreciating me
but still hanging in there
communicating with my parents
in touch with my kids
and getting more in touch
with myself
and that's all good
THANKS FOR MAKING IT GOOD,
and
COULD YOU MAKE IT A LITTLE BETTER?
Someone has said that parents are people who give and give, and one day give away. It is in this middle
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season that we give our children away.... They go off to college, they find their place in the world, they marry. For some parents the transition is easy, natural. For others, it is a traumatic loss. When a husband and wife find themselves alone in their home for the first time in many years, that's a new season. If they have kept their love alive, it will be a good one, for the real quality of a relationship is determined by what is left after the children are gone.
While a couple are still fully involved in the middle years, it is good to begin to prepare for the following season — the one that brings retirement and senior citizenry.
We know a couple in their forties who have just completed a university course called "Preparing for Retirement." Experts in many fields — medical, economic, judicial, social, and spiritual — lectured and answered questions, and according to our friends, it was a very lively course. However, as in every other area of life, we can have all the knowledge in the world, and it won't help a bit if our attitude is not right. When God is active in our lives he helps us to develop the right attitude. He is the one who keeps us adaptable and pliable.. he is the one who urges us to swim with, rather than against, life's forward flow.
Jung refers to us middle-agers as "the natural motors of existence." If we haven't done it before, now is the time to decelerate the motors just a bit and prepare for the time when their productive powers will be stilled.
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Now is the time to slow down enough to see people more clearly, establish deeper relationships, explore new opportunities to serve and to love. These are the things we can take with us into retirement and beyond. For love is the one thing that goes with us from this life into the next.
My mother-in-law often says to me, "Coke, you young people" — and by that she means us middle-agers — "ought to work on your dispositions, because when you are old, you will be just the same — only more so." How true! Charlie Brown's friend Lucy would agree: "The crabby little girls of today," she boasts, "are the crabby old women of tomorrow!"
When Mother Evans urges us to work on ourselves, she really means that we should let God work in us. He is our best therapist... he is the one who can straighten out the funny little kinks in our characters and smooth some of these wrinkles in our dispositions. If we are willing to change, he will do the rest.
Yes, the middle years are good years. They offer a couple the time they need to be together... the opportunity to let their children go and to enjoy them in a totally new relationship... to discover and use new gifts... and to grow in their inner life. We have found the middle years can be a renaissance of love.
And after that? I must admit, having not yet experienced this later season of married life, I feel at a disadvantage ... Certainly there is nothing I can say from my own knowledge. And yet, there are people I
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know and love who are there right now. I have watched — and I have listened — and because of what I have seen and heard and felt from them, I am a believer in the goodness of this season of marriage as much as any other. Perhaps even more. For when a relationship between a man and wife has been a living, growing organism, will not the passing of seasons make it more so, rather than less? Can the advertisement that says to a woman, "You're not getting older. You're getting better," be true of a marriage as well? (Of course, we are getting older — but you get the point!)
I think so! For I have seen the hands reach out— the tender, knowing pats when they thought no one was watching — the looks that belied the notion that beyond a certain age people are "just too old to care about such things."
And I have heard their words of affirmation for this season of their life and love. My friend Helen Johns said as she entered her seventieth year, "George and I have never been happier. Life has never been so good." Seeing the look on her face and knowing the quality of life they had together, I believed!
Of course, in this season, as in every other, there are tears as well as happiness... That is life. A couple coming to the later years together walk daily with the possibility of illness, death, and bereavement. One of the dearest friends I'll ever have recently celebrated her eightieth birthday. She and her husband are remarkable people — in the way they live and the way
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they are facing death. They believe that when they die they will leave a limited existence here and step into a whole new level of life with Christ. And yet they are honest about the hard times they are facing now. After the funeral of one of their best friends, my friend wrote me, "Now we're on the front line, and it's chilly out here."
Front lines are rarely comfortable, because that is where the action is.. and in old age the actions take place in the mind and soul more than in the body. In Learn to Grow Old Paul Tournier says of this season of life:
This limitation of life does not in the least imply resignation. All the renunciations demanded by old age are in the field of action, not in that of the heart and mind. The belong to the order of "doing," not that of "being." I live differently, but not less. Life is different, but it is still fully life — even fuller, if that were possible. My interest and participation in the world is not diminishing, but increasing.
How wonderful! This week I had the joy of hearing a speaker who is active in the Grey Panthers movement .. and what a dynamo she is! When someone referred to her as a "young lady," she responded, "I am not a young lady. I'm an old woman, and proud of it!" Maggie has obviously learned that, like every other season, "winter" has its own unique joys of compensations.
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Adaptability is a gift of the Spirit, and because that gift resides in each of us, we can meet the challenge of a new season. Our roles as husband and wife, our style and pace of life, will change over the years, but with God's help, each change will become a step toward a more thrilling future — a future in which we will be with Christ, and all those we love... forever.
But that is not all. For just as important as the number of years two people share — the chronological seasons — are the seasons of our feelings that determine the quality rather than the quantity. For most couples there are seasons of emotional stretching — a shifting of gears form the images two people have of one another to the discovery of the real persons beneath the image. Hopefully, this is a time for the myth of perfection that inhibits many a marriage from being dealt with and seen for what it is — unrealistic and less than God's best. We might also hope for it to be a "season of the real" — real love for the real person you married, with all his or her strengths, weaknesses, and potential wrapped up in one beautiful — but very human — being.
How vulnerable we are to each other at this moment of truth in our life together! Will we be able to accept the real person we married? Or perhaps the question is: "Will I be able to believe his [or her] acceptance of the real me?" Someone has said that the ultimate in faith is accepting acceptance — whether from God or our partner. The moment we believe and accept another's acceptance of us — just as we are — our life begins
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to be different and can never be the same again.
In marriage it is this kind of acceptance that enables a husband and wife to walk through each season of life, saying to one another, "My lover, my friend...."
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