by Dave Gregory
My Intimate Love, Source of all I hope and dread,
In some sense, every prayer I’ve ever prayed has led me to this one. And this prayer will lead to every prayer I will pray from here on in.
First of all, forgive me for posting a prayer on a blog. I know it’s in direct violation of the commandment to pray in secret, but whatever. Some prayers need to blathered into the public sphere. Second, forgive my affections for long titles to these things, and pardon my floral verbosity. Just because this one’s more thought through, doesn’t mean it ain’t real.
You know I’m not a big believer in petitionary prayer. I know you know that I regard asking you for things, or for graces, or for healings as a bit, well, trite. On the other hand, I do believe that sincere petition does deepen my capacity to love those I pray for, or even to love myself a little bit more… or get in touch with my brokenness and desperation, which I so often forget and am loathe to confess. I still get all judgy when I hear people pray for things, or ask for healings, or really any sort of material aid. In my hubris, I like to think I’ve become holy enough that I don’t need to petition. How silly that is. Still though, Interstellar was right, methinks: love is the one thing that transcends space and time, and my whole religious imagination is built on this belief, which sometimes teeters too often into the realm of mere intellectual assent and meaningless consolation. All that said, I still need to petition every so often...
Now that a ring and engagement photos have made this relationship a bit more real, I need to ask for some stuff. Because I’ve got some fears, and I’ve come to know that fear is always the tail of the Enemy, but I also know that naming and bringing these fears to light weakens that tail’s grip wound around my throat.
I fear that all the ridiculousness of wedding planning will distract us from the real work at hand. I cannot help but be scared that the process of buying, buying, and more buying, this descent into consumerism, will draw our attentions more to ourselves than to those around us. This liturgy, and the subsequent party, aren’t so much about us, as they are a celebration of your love and the loves that have given us who we are. Grant us the grace to remember that.
I fear that I’ll be so exhausted from that weekend that I’ll need weeks to recover. I fear that I might get a bit too sloppy and start gyrating around columns, as I did at one high school friend’s wedding. I fear that my penchant for serenading former college roommates and groomsmen with Taylor Swift (like, the good old stuff) will weird my new family out.
I fear that living with another person, that sharing the same bed with my future wife, might be too much for me. Or, better yet, for her. I’ve become so used to sleeping alone for three decades that imagining anything other than solitude fills me with terror. Garris 1 used to tell me, when we shared a hotel bed during various trips, that I kick in my sleep. I hope that Sarah’s able to rest in such close proximity to my flailing limbs; she thinks a queen bed will suffice, though I remain unsure. I fear that Sarah will come to find my sleep apnea machine so terribly unsexy that sharing a bed with it becomes a thing of blandness. I mean, it’s hard to spoon someone with plastic headgear strapped around my furry noggin. I hope that she’s able to come to grips with that all-too-human necessity, and won’t resent my inability to nuzzle my head into her neck during cold winter nights. The fear of sharing a bathroom with a girl, as immature as that sounds, also weirds me the eff out.
I fear that changing baby diapers smeared with crap will make me dry heave. And that emptying a Diaper Genie will make me vomit. I fear that one day I too will need diapers, and won’t know who to turn to. I fear that whoever does so will do so without compassion, and that I will wither.
I fear that I’ll get bored. I mean, I will get bored. And lonely. I don’t know how or why this will happen, but I know it’s built into my DNA, this regrettable inevitability. Marriage is no guarantee against loneliness, after all. I’ve learned how to turn loneliness into solitude, I think. But loneliness while living with Sarah might be a different beast entirely. I fear that the monotony of existence will bring resentment, that sex will become so routine as to become undesirable. I fear that so many years of believing I would be celibate have conditioned me to not really want sex so terribly often, or that the biological need for sex will deepen a sense of loneliness when our desires for intimacy are not in sync. Despite this, I pray that sex itself becomes an act of prayer, a liturgy of sweat and silliness, such that any and all sense of self becomes simultaneously forgotten and deepened. I ask for the grace to undertake infinite acts of generosity that I cannot foresee, even when I find myself disinclined to do so. Give me the courage to overcome my navel-gazing idiocy, the disposition to revel when revelling is called for.
I fear that all the hair I shed, and the consequent dust bunnies that tend to collect in corners, will frustrate Sarah. I fear that when I tape them to her sleeping body that she won’t appreciate the joke. I think she will. At least, I hope she’ll laugh more than when I gave her a couple hundred Disney villain stamps for our save-the-dates.
My hopes and thanksgivings remain nebulous, and impossible to articulate, for they are not based so much on lived experience, but upon ideals that I don’t want to dissolve. Forgive me for sounding cliche here, but I cannot muster the words for anything else.
Help us to make our marriage about something more than ourselves. May we recognize our labor as ministry, as something that restores justice and equity and joy to our world, even in the most minute of ways: with children, with friends, with colleagues, among those we serve. May we evangelize, not in the sense of drawing converts into our Church, but in the sense of invisibly bringing Christ to the world and the world to Christ. Grant us the grace to witness Heaven and earth kiss, and to rejoice when we behold such sacramental moments.
Grant us the grace to approach our vows, standing before the altar, in the midst of a cloud of witnesses, mindful that we counter a culture that believes such vows are built on fleeting emotionality. Help us to live the covenantal promise each moment, even and especially when emotions run cooler. And when our existences become bathed in the lukewarmth of the quotidian, grant us the patience to enjoy our immersion into the perfectly ordinary. To discover real joy in it, even.
May we find sainthoods that are quiet and undramatic. Our engagement photo session, terribly unrealistic, the product of fabricated perfection, does not really paint any sort of accurate picture of what our relationship actually consists of. Rarely do we traipse around the wilderness in formal clothing, and rarely do I imbibe four shots of rye whiskey in immediate succession before getting my picture taken (forgive my consumption). But the real work of our mutual redemption will be, I suspect, infinitely distant from such culturally-expected machinations. Nobody else will see it. I hope it is all the more joyful, for we won’t be trying to be something we’re not.
Sarah and I become the keys to unlock one another’s salvation with this matrimonial bond. When one of us dies, may the other look back on his or her existence with nothing but gratitude, firm in the conviction that the relationship has entered a new stage and has not ceased with the termination of a heartbeat.
When that moment comes (for it will be the moment we’ve been living for), may memories rise up from the depths, our hearts aching with recollections of whiskies and ridiculousness and puppies and dinner parties and road trips and lazy days and our children and our honeymoon and our first night as a married couple and our save-the-dates and our engagement and our first kiss and our first date and our first letter and our first OKCupid messages. May she or I feel the other’s gaze, when death arrives, and may that gaze burn. May we continue to pray for one another when that impenetrable veil hides the glorified from the not-yet-glorified. May that presence, forged over decades, still be felt.
For now, I find myself filled with thanksgiving, as has been the case for the past two years. I wish I could write an epic poem as Dante did, for Sarah is my Beatrice, the luminescent mirror of your love. Then again, I suppose Dante wrote the Commedia so that the rest us don’t have to. Nevertheless, I imagine that some hellish and purgatorial flames await, but I pray that I can keep her in my sight, drawing me ever closer to you.
Thank you for giving me someone so unfathomably beautiful that my fifteen year-old self could never have dreamt of someone more perfect. Thank you for gifting me with someone who puts up with all my nonsense and vulnerabilities, and even my vulgarities. Thank you for letting me love you through all these years, for all that has resulted from that love has led me to Sarah. I am undeserving, and may my life be a prayer of gratitude in response.
I fear that I’ll be so exhausted from that weekend that I’ll need weeks to recover. I fear that I might get a bit too sloppy and start gyrating around columns, as I did at one high school friend’s wedding. I fear that my penchant for serenading former college roommates and groomsmen with Taylor Swift (like, the good old stuff) will weird my new family out.
I fear that living with another person, that sharing the same bed with my future wife, might be too much for me. Or, better yet, for her. I’ve become so used to sleeping alone for three decades that imagining anything other than solitude fills me with terror. Garris 1 used to tell me, when we shared a hotel bed during various trips, that I kick in my sleep. I hope that Sarah’s able to rest in such close proximity to my flailing limbs; she thinks a queen bed will suffice, though I remain unsure. I fear that Sarah will come to find my sleep apnea machine so terribly unsexy that sharing a bed with it becomes a thing of blandness. I mean, it’s hard to spoon someone with plastic headgear strapped around my furry noggin. I hope that she’s able to come to grips with that all-too-human necessity, and won’t resent my inability to nuzzle my head into her neck during cold winter nights. The fear of sharing a bathroom with a girl, as immature as that sounds, also weirds me the eff out.
I fear that changing baby diapers smeared with crap will make me dry heave. And that emptying a Diaper Genie will make me vomit. I fear that one day I too will need diapers, and won’t know who to turn to. I fear that whoever does so will do so without compassion, and that I will wither.
I fear that I’ll get bored. I mean, I will get bored. And lonely. I don’t know how or why this will happen, but I know it’s built into my DNA, this regrettable inevitability. Marriage is no guarantee against loneliness, after all. I’ve learned how to turn loneliness into solitude, I think. But loneliness while living with Sarah might be a different beast entirely. I fear that the monotony of existence will bring resentment, that sex will become so routine as to become undesirable. I fear that so many years of believing I would be celibate have conditioned me to not really want sex so terribly often, or that the biological need for sex will deepen a sense of loneliness when our desires for intimacy are not in sync. Despite this, I pray that sex itself becomes an act of prayer, a liturgy of sweat and silliness, such that any and all sense of self becomes simultaneously forgotten and deepened. I ask for the grace to undertake infinite acts of generosity that I cannot foresee, even when I find myself disinclined to do so. Give me the courage to overcome my navel-gazing idiocy, the disposition to revel when revelling is called for.
I fear that all the hair I shed, and the consequent dust bunnies that tend to collect in corners, will frustrate Sarah. I fear that when I tape them to her sleeping body that she won’t appreciate the joke. I think she will. At least, I hope she’ll laugh more than when I gave her a couple hundred Disney villain stamps for our save-the-dates.
My hopes and thanksgivings remain nebulous, and impossible to articulate, for they are not based so much on lived experience, but upon ideals that I don’t want to dissolve. Forgive me for sounding cliche here, but I cannot muster the words for anything else.
Help us to make our marriage about something more than ourselves. May we recognize our labor as ministry, as something that restores justice and equity and joy to our world, even in the most minute of ways: with children, with friends, with colleagues, among those we serve. May we evangelize, not in the sense of drawing converts into our Church, but in the sense of invisibly bringing Christ to the world and the world to Christ. Grant us the grace to witness Heaven and earth kiss, and to rejoice when we behold such sacramental moments.
Grant us the grace to approach our vows, standing before the altar, in the midst of a cloud of witnesses, mindful that we counter a culture that believes such vows are built on fleeting emotionality. Help us to live the covenantal promise each moment, even and especially when emotions run cooler. And when our existences become bathed in the lukewarmth of the quotidian, grant us the patience to enjoy our immersion into the perfectly ordinary. To discover real joy in it, even.
May we find sainthoods that are quiet and undramatic. Our engagement photo session, terribly unrealistic, the product of fabricated perfection, does not really paint any sort of accurate picture of what our relationship actually consists of. Rarely do we traipse around the wilderness in formal clothing, and rarely do I imbibe four shots of rye whiskey in immediate succession before getting my picture taken (forgive my consumption). But the real work of our mutual redemption will be, I suspect, infinitely distant from such culturally-expected machinations. Nobody else will see it. I hope it is all the more joyful, for we won’t be trying to be something we’re not.
Sarah and I become the keys to unlock one another’s salvation with this matrimonial bond. When one of us dies, may the other look back on his or her existence with nothing but gratitude, firm in the conviction that the relationship has entered a new stage and has not ceased with the termination of a heartbeat.
When that moment comes (for it will be the moment we’ve been living for), may memories rise up from the depths, our hearts aching with recollections of whiskies and ridiculousness and puppies and dinner parties and road trips and lazy days and our children and our honeymoon and our first night as a married couple and our save-the-dates and our engagement and our first kiss and our first date and our first letter and our first OKCupid messages. May she or I feel the other’s gaze, when death arrives, and may that gaze burn. May we continue to pray for one another when that impenetrable veil hides the glorified from the not-yet-glorified. May that presence, forged over decades, still be felt.
For now, I find myself filled with thanksgiving, as has been the case for the past two years. I wish I could write an epic poem as Dante did, for Sarah is my Beatrice, the luminescent mirror of your love. Then again, I suppose Dante wrote the Commedia so that the rest us don’t have to. Nevertheless, I imagine that some hellish and purgatorial flames await, but I pray that I can keep her in my sight, drawing me ever closer to you.
Thank you for giving me someone so unfathomably beautiful that my fifteen year-old self could never have dreamt of someone more perfect. Thank you for gifting me with someone who puts up with all my nonsense and vulnerabilities, and even my vulgarities. Thank you for letting me love you through all these years, for all that has resulted from that love has led me to Sarah. I am undeserving, and may my life be a prayer of gratitude in response.
1 Editor's note from Dan: Garris is the name of Dave's mother. For those who have not met her, she's amazing. For those who have, Dave's simply saying "Garris" suffices... as you were... ↩
David, Thank you for sharing. I wish you and Sarah all things wonderful, and it they are not always perfect, you will work through them together with strength, love, and laughter. Hoping your marriage is like mine was - nothing short of perfect in our eyes. Than you for your 4th to the last paragraph - so true.
ReplyDelete