Thursday, February 14, 2013

Living love (or: How does our garden grow? part ii)

I read a great post today about today, and more importantly about not making it into something out-of-proportion but instead living committed love throughout the year.  I generally end up treating today as a chance to do what I should be doing every day: loving my bride as I am called, laying down my life for her and helping her feel treasured.  If I fail to do something special today, though, she is going to feel left out and disregarded.  I sometimes wish she agreed with me that this annual day is a reflection of the world's approach to romance and that we have something greater that we celebrate every day and so don't need to "crank things up" on this particular day.  Instead I choose to observe today uniquely because it is the only way to make sure that she feels special and treasured today rather than as if she is playing second fiddle to my ideals.

That said, there are things in the linked post that I think we could learn from.  We should get into the habit of a weekly date, for instance, not as an excuse to get out but a chance to make our relationship the priority it should be.  I like that they are setting aside one day every week for that, and think we should do the same.

So what is the practical implication (as Fr. Satish would say) of that conviction?  Well, if we're to implement this in the same way, I'm going to have to cut something out of my life.  Right now there is no night of the week on which I don't have at least one recurring conflict.  So it looks to me as if I should either never be available for first Friday mass, or never be available for our quarterly charismatic gathering, as the other things all occur more frequently.  Now that there is no Jubilee - a loss I'm particularly feeling this week - perhaps Friday is my most consistent available night.  After all, I've said that I'm laying down my life for my bride, but I think that I too often make her take a back seat to something else I think I should be doing.

That is definitely not how I want to treat her.

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