"That yella, no-good, pantsless, honey-eating sonuvab--"
"BENJAMIN," my mother interrupted.
"Well It's not my fault. This thing is stupid," I snapped back as I threw a cardboard lid against the wall. It landed face up with a short -thuck- sound as the lid trapped the air under it. Upside down and condescending, a ginger-tiger hung upside down with his curly tail sticking up like the middle-finger of life. Next to him a dainty pig and what appeared to be a cross between Snuggles the Downy Bear and a pre-Shield Michael Chiklis were silently mocking me.
"BENJAMIN [middle name deleted], you better pick that up before I count to 3 or you're gonna be in the corner," mom said.
"But his nose is missing," I protested.
It was no use. She was still 2 1/2 feet taller, outweighed me by [weight deleted] pounds, and had an extra 12 inches on her reach. Even if I landed a jab to her kidney, she would've pulled me in and choke-slammed me into the blue trunk that held all the afghans.
I picked up the box and started to take this 50-piece Pooh puzzle apart, but stopped before I got the first corner lifted off. I bent down and started crawling under tables, chairs, and a coat rack hunting for the missing nose. I searched for a while and then gave up. I was pulling up the pieces of the puzzle and putting them in the box handfuls at a time. First came up the tiger. Then the pig. A tree and a honey pot. Then finally the bear. as I pulled him apart -- legs first, then torso -- I swear I could hear him whisper: I win.
I stuck the box of 49 pieces into the bottom of my brother and I's shared closet. I knew at that moment, that unless a miracle happened and I found that piece, I would never pull that box out again. Late at night, I would lie awake and sometimes, if I listened carefully, I could hear Pooh just barely say, "You puzzle like a b---h."
****
I think that if I had to compare marriage to any movie, it would be Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Did you ever see it? It was the very last Indiana Jones movie.
But, Ben, I thought the Kingdom of the Krystal Skull was last Indiana Jones movie?
No. You're wrong. That movie never happened. Ever. Don't ever mention that name again.
...anyway.
In the Last Crusade, Indy and his father are racing against the Nazis to find the Holy Grail. They end up in a cave in Egypt or Utah or some desert place I think. They find the Holy Grail and as they do, the cave starts collapsing everywhere. The earth is splitting open. Nazis are falling into chasms. Sean Connery is taking a nap. It's all just chaos.
As everything is just going to hell, Indy is trying to save Elsa, a Nazi who had deceived both the Jones earlier in the movie by trying to seduce them and pretending she was on their side. She falls into a chasm and is clinging to the side of the rock. Indy is above her reaching down trying to save her. Even after all the treachery and lies, Indy is trying to be the good guy and save the damsel in distress. But Elsa isn't reaching up to grab Indy's outstretched hand. She's clinging to the rock and she's staring at the cliff next to her -- where the Holy Grail is sitting. If it falls off the quaking cliff, it'll be gone forever; engulfed in lava and fire.
If only she can save it. She stretches. She stretches. Indy pleads with her to grab his hand; leave the Holy Grail to it's fate, he pleads. Of course, she doesn't listen to Indy. She needs the Grail. she can't live with out it. For Elsa, the risk of dying is worth the attempt to get her Grail; the thought of living without it terrifies her. How could life be complete without it? So she reaches. She plummets. She dies.
****
Not a lot of my friends, but all of my friends at one point or another looked at marriage the same way as Elsa looked at the Holy Grail and the same way a child may have looked at Winnie the Pooh's nose. "When I find that pudgy quadriped's schnoze, my puzzle will be complete. It will be finished. I can finally rest."
As Elsa lusted after the idea of the Holy Grail, so we all tend to crave the thought of marriage. "If I can just get my hands on it. If I can just possess this thing, my worries will be gone. Everything will be OK. Everything will be the way it should be."
What's funny is that I've put together lots of puzzles in my life and what did I feel after? Nothing really. Maybe I thought, "Cool, this is done. Maybe I'll go do something else now."
I didn't feel transformed. I didn't feel completed. I didn't feel perfect. I felt a couple hours older, a little bit hungrier and maybe a little bored. For a long time marriage has been my Holy Grail and thus far, it seems to be trapped down in a fiery chasm of lava and sulfur -- BUT I begin to see why I might be behind the curve in life compared to many of my friends. I have benefited from seeing the people I love fall in love. I have begun to learn something as a bachelor that some of them didn't start learning until they were husbands and all of them are continuing to learn today still:
Becoming one with somebody doesn't make you whole.
That's a key thought. The Bible says that we will leave our parents and cleave to another. We will in spirit and emotion and sexually, become one in imitation of the Trinity that is One. We meet a woman, fall in love, and become one; sharing life, resources, thoughts, emotions, hearts. Take warning though: we may become a more complete person, but we will not be a complete person in marriage.
Too many times I think that we build marriage (or sports or careers or whatever idols are in our heads) up as this last piece of the puzzle. We think, "If I can just get [blank], I will be happy. I will be there."
But then we get married or we get the promotion or we have the kids, etc and we still feel like we fell short. We still feel this ache in our hearts or this loose screw in our heads that rattles around and reminds us that things are not complete and things are not perfect. We can never seem to put our fingers on it, but I believe God has put it on the tips of our tongues that something is not quite right in this world. I think God baits us with insecurities like these because he wants to draw our attention to the one thing that will make us complete: Him.
Our creator. Our crafter. Our designer. Our potter. God wants to bless us with experiences that we can share with Him. And I think marriage is one of those big experiences that God gives to some (not all, but some) and says, "Through this experience, if you invite Me into it, I will bless it and I will make you complete. I will give you what you seek, though not always in the form you seek it."
At some time or another, I've heard all of my friends share this thought: they got married thinking that they would no longer feel unloved, undesired, or unknown and yet here they are, in a blessed, loving marriage, and they STILL struggle with feeling unloved, undesired, and unknown. And sometimes they feel these insecurities deeper in marriage than they ever did as bachelors and bachelorettes. Marriage didn't stop the insecurities. At times it enhanced them.
Marriage, as they say, is not for making a man happy, but for making him holy. What better way to bring a heart to God than to draw it out into the open and into the insecurities that make it long for something more?
Ask yourself these questions:
- What is your missing piece of the puzzle, your Holy Grail? What is the thing(s) that you think will make you complete or make you happy?
- What is the area of discomfort that God might be drawing you into to awaken your heart to the bigger things?
- When those things have you let you down because they didn't make you feel complete...did you take it out on somebody else? Have you failed to love your wife because it hasn't been what you expected? What about family? Friends? Neighbors? How can you begin to repair those relationships so that God can lead you to completion?
I am not complete today. I will not be complete tomorrow. When my body is dead and I am risen next to God, then I think I will be complete.
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