I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

From The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus.

He left the coffee shop as it started to rain. Clutching his files tightly under his arm— heavier, it seemed than how he had remembered— he darted across the street to the foot of the bridge in order to find shelter from a downpour which had all afternoon been threatening to fall. He cursed under his breath as his manila envelopes were spattered with water.

Why the hell did I park the car on the other side, he thought. Stupid.

He lingered a moment over the railing, watching as the pavement began to turn from a dusty gray to a shiny black, as vehicles below sped by, leaving the sound of splashing water crushed between tire and concrete. Immediately, he was mesmerized by the rhythmic rush of life that happened beneath his feet, and wondered what it was like to actually have somewhere to go. And then, as though by instinct, the thought of mortality again flashed in his mind, as though the pavement below were some sordid salvation. He dismissed the thought with a cynical snicker.

You won't get off that easy, he thought. He remebered what it was again that the philosopher said: “It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm— this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.”

He knew that it was that this why which stared at him straight from the pavement, a why which he did not quite now know the answer. At least not yet.

The urgency of his tasks, however, called him back to himself, so that he knew that what time he had to consider these matters of meaning were circumscribed by the ring he wore on his finger, and the promise that he would be home. And so, as though by some supernatural force, he set his envelopes in order again, tucking them tightly beneath his jacket, trudging across the bridge, finally, to the other side.

He got off the bridge, into the rain, and he knew that the world was as it should be— it was how he had found it coming up the bridge, and how he knew he would find it coming down. Life sucks, he told himself. But all is well.

If one wishes to understand the history and character of the Ateneo de Manila from its beginnings in 1859 as the Ateneo Municipal to the present Ateneo at Loyola Heights, one will inadvertently stumble upon the broad white sheets of Horacio dela Costa’s epic account of the Jesuits in the Philippines, aptly entitled, Light Cavalry. In this book, dela Costa writes about the Ateneo as it was, many, many years ago, when it was first behind the moss-covered walls of Intramuros, along Calle Anda, and then later on, at the Quonset huts of Padre Faura, before the outbreak of the Second World War. This was the Ateneo of José Rizal and Antonio Luna, the same Ateneo that would later give us a Raul Manglapus and a Leon Ma. Guerrero, a Roque Ferriols and a Catalino Arévalo. This was the Ateneo of myth and legend.

From these stories of days gone by, one gets a taste of what it is to be an Atenean— to be imbued with that special fire of sapientia et eloquentia that has been handed down from generation to generation. It is an Ateneo that, as dela Costa himself writes, “stands aloof from the hurry of the world, its precipitate flux, its mutability. It does not worry too much about being fashionable, because it knows that it has something to impart which is far better than what is merely new— something, in fact, which will always be newer than what is merely new—something, in short, that cannot die.” Dela Costa, of course, was pertaining to the Faith, for sure. But he was also pertaining to the Classics. And then, also, to Philosophy. Thus, dela Costa’s Ateneo gave its students a steady diet of Theology, Philosophy, and the Classics. Through such holistic, liberal education, the Ateneo then hoped to produce persons of conscience and competence, contemplation and action; in a word, whole persons.

It therefore becomes apparent that Literature (the Classics, most especially)— and, by extension, the Humanities— have also played a traditional role in the formation of the Atenean. Dela Costa himself describes bouts with Caesar’s Gaellic War that needed to be translated into English from the original Latin (Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres); the analysis and imitation of paragraphs by Chesterton (The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people); and the reading of poetry by Hopkins (As kingfishers catch fire dragonflies/ draw flame). It was hoped that through these exercises, the Atenean would gain an appreciation and understanding of humanity, of his joys and his fears, his terrors and his triumphs. In the end, this liberal education aimed at exposing the Atenean to what is beautiful and noble in human culture so that he would somehow be able to find a template, a pattern, against which he may fit his own life; no doubt, to attain Plato’s much-vaunted “examined life.”

Looking now at the present Ateneo, however, it would seem that Literature has taken a back seat to the more practical sciences of Accounting and Management, to name only a few. Gone is the rigor by which Literature had been pursued, and in its place, emerged a pale palliative of didactic frustration on the part of teachers, and passive, confused assent on the part of students. Indeed, in a University that once prided itself with the speaking of “Arrrneow” English, students no longer know Shakespeare, Dickens, Housman, or Eliot. And they are not the least bit bothered by it. In light of these facts, one cannot but lament the death of Literature, or at least, the literary tradition that dela Costa had known, the same one that formed Rizals, Manglapuses, Ferriolses and Arévalos.

We have, as Ateneans, lost a sense of the literary, simply because we live in a non-reading culture. With the rise of even more television, the Internet, and globalization, society itself has shifted its paradigms, exchanging the priority of humanitas to the more temporal search for the quaestus, prompting the American educator Theodore Hesburgh to question the future of liberal education, “especially in our day when the most popular course on [the] college campus [is] not literature or history, but accouting.”

I believe that the future of liberal education lies first and foremost in the recognition that it is, before anything else, an ideology (to borrow from Eagleton’s The Rise of English); it is an integrative center upon which to build the core of the truly human person. Literature, alongside Theology, Philosophy, History, and the Modern Languages, serves as a means to promote that one single classical end of humanitas— of forming the Atenean into a fully human person, in the same mold, perhaps, as the Ateneo of Intramuros or Padre Faura.

Because of the changes in paradigm and outlook, however, this end of humanitas is now much more nuanced; it is, in fact, made more imperative due to the popularity of the practical, albeit clinical (and perhaps, passionless) disciplines. Aside from being one of the normative standards of humanity as it had been in the past, Literature therefore serves the added purpose of being a critical counter-culture to the rise of Management and the Sciences, with their ideologies of profit and objectivity. Not that these endeavors are harmful in themselves; but by tempering the tendencies to objectify and categorize the world, Literature reminds students that “feeling is first”, allowing students alternative and complementary endeavors which invite them to approach life with the objectivity and linearity of Mathematics, yes, but also with the wonder and discovery of Literature and Philosophy. The purpose, then, is to give him the facility to answer the what's and the how’s, but also to have the courage and awareness to ask the why’s and the what-for’s; seeking, in the end, hopefully, “the last and greatest of all human dreams.”

In addition, Literature now serves the added purpose of complementing and bridging the sometimes-disparate world of Philosophy and Theology, no the one hand, and Management and the Sciences, on the other. It is the middle ground upon which these seemingly opposing disciplines meet. It is therefore not surprising to use Dickens’ “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” in The Tale of Two Cities as a preface to an understanding of Classical Economics; or Alyosha’s lament following the death of his teacher Zosima in Doestoyevsky’s The Brother’s Karamazov to find its way into a discussion of the Philosophy of Religion; or even to use Dilsey and Benjy in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury as a template of God’s liberating love. Indeed, Literature at the Ateneo serves the purpose of bridging the theoretical gaps left by Theology, Philosophy, Management and the Sciences, making them more felt and fruitful by putting a more human face to Faith and Reason.

Finally, Literature at the Ateneo not only bridges the gap left by Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences, but also crosses the chasm created by social classes and cultures. Literature, in a very real sense, is a means by which the Atenean today is able to widen his or her horizons, allowing a better understanding of the world beyond his limited situation. It is knowing life vicariously through the transportive power of the written world, introducing him to the barricades of Hugo’s France, to the safaris of Hemingway’s Kilimanjaro, to the magic of Marquez’s South America, to the hidden caverns of cumming’s human heart. The world is open to the Atenean, perhaps not in the structured, academic manner of the old “learn’d by rote” Literature, but in a wide, genre-spanning totality of its curriculum.

The tragedy, though, is that all these opportunities are still largely left unrealized.

No doubt, Literature’s role at the Ateneo has not changed. Its role continues to be the formation of the truly human person, in the mold of sapientia et eloquentia. But many things have changed besides, and as the Ateneo had to squarely face the dawn of the next millennium, Literature, in a desire to remain effective and relevant, also found the need to change along with the times, necessitating— together with the primary aim of humanitas— the added role of critic, complement, and bridge. It had to relax old practices and revise tested beliefs— exchanging rigor for practical co-existence.

Reflecting on these roles, then, Literature at the Ateneo appears to be falling short of these aspirations. Literature to many, remains but another necessary page in the canon of requirements for the semester. Many, in fact, do not have an appreciation for the power of the written word. Gone, therefore, is the coveted contact with the immense treasure trove of significant human experience handed down fro the Greeks, the Latins, at the great writers and poets.

Certainly, nostalgia for the old Ateneo is easy in the face of this disillusionment. And in a way, this nostalgia is understandable. For indeed, with the falling of the Latin and Classical paradigm, “then I, and you, and all of us fell down”: surely, we had decidedly all lost something. Yet perhaps, in this new age, this “new” Ateneo of globalization, with its Sciences and Management may find its own new breed of Rizals, Manglapuses, Farrioles and Arévalos, who, while certainly less conversant in Cicero and Shakespeare, will be no less imbued with humanitas, sapientia et eloquentia. Indeed, only time will tell.

Of course he would not say it. How could he? He was the best friend. In a situation that came straight out of a movie, he knew how these things ended: in a tight hug, a kiss on the forehead, and a gentle, albeit final, rejection. Many times, he had wanted to throw caution to the wind, damn all consequences, and just put in out in the open, as though it were some dark secret that needed to be exposed. But he couldn't. He just couldn't bring himself to do it. Indeed, perhaps the most difficult things to say are the most honest, and honesty, especially in matters such as these, was often a very delicate affair.

From the years that he had known her, since they had met in college, the relationship was always jovial and light. And he had wanted it that way. Or perhaps more precisely, he had no other choice— because by the time he had realized that he had wanted so much more from their relationship, she had settled on giving him exactly what they had: a friendship.

He himself didn't understand how it happened. It's just that he woke up one day and found himself loving her, that way. It was a quiet, growing knowledge of a special attraction, yes, but more importantly, an overriding desire to do things that made her happy. His friends called it over-extending, by which they meant to mean, going out of his way to do small things which made her smile; unnecessary things, but he enjoyed it, nonetheless. And before he knew it, he was no longer over-extending. It had become a habit, an impulse, a reflex, so that to him, the knowledge that “I love her,” became a mere statement of fact, a description of what simply was, no different than “the sky is blue,” or that “fire burns.”

But he could not tell her this, because he knew that he was exactly what he was, and she was exactly what she was. They were universes apart, a cosmic joke that didn't quite make sense. He was a successful professional, she was a print-ad model. He was stiff and uptight, she was glamorous and out-going. Many times, they have tried to explain how two seemingly opposite persons could become such good friends. And every time, through much laughter and reminiscences, they always arrived at the same answer: that they had met each other when they were still themselves, before the trappings of career, success and fame came to complicate many things.

It wasn't so bad, he thought. At least he knew that he had a special connection that many of her suitors only dream of approximating. More than once, in fact, he had been asked why it was that they were not together. Some even said that he was probably gay.

No, he was not gay. He was just the best friend.

And so one evening, over dinner, like so many other dinners they had gone to together, she said, “I can't understand how people who hardly know me at all can say that they care for me, that they love me, even. It's absurd!”

“Are your even surprised?” he asked, giving her an incredulous look. “I mean, it seems that every other night, you're out at Fiama, or somewhere.”

She gave out a hearty laugh! “Fiama? Good grief, that's so five minutes ago!”

“Whatever. You know what I mean.”

“God," she mumbled to herself as she took a sip of water, getting back to what she was saying. “I swear, men are so shallow!” Before she was finished with her sentence, however, her thoughts overtook her, and she launched into another story: “Like this guy, he'd come over to the agency, he'd bring food and stuff. He's a nice guy, really. But he's really weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, he sends me e-mails saying that he feels that we have a special connection, and they he really cares a lot for me. . . . yada, yada, yada." She started rolling her eyes.

“Well, that's 'cause you're such a flirt,” he said to her flatly.

“I am not,” she protested, pointing a fork at him.

“Well, he wouldn't say these things if you didn't give him reason to,” he said, half-teasing. He was beyond being jealous. He'd heard the story before. He knew how the game with her went.

“That isn't the point,” she said. “The point is that they really don't have any basis! At all!" She gave him a thoughtful pause. “What is it that you used to tell me?”

“Which one?” he asked.

“That time, I even remember when you said it,” she shook her heard, trying hard to remember. “That we only know that which we love, and that we only love that which we know? Or something like that.”

“Yes, and your point being?”

“That these guys. . . . They don't even know me! How can they say all these things to me! I end up thinking that the reason why they want to be friends with me is because they have some sort of agenda! Just riles me, I guess.”

“Well, maybe next time, don't give them reason to think that you're open to their agendas,” he said, trying to be his dry, acerbic self. “But yes, you said it correctly: You can only know that which you love.”

“And you can only love that which you know, yes?"

“You learn well, my padowan,” he replied, smiling. But in his head, what he really wanted to say was, “So many people tell you that they love you. And yet that one person who really knows you best, the one person who really loves you, can't even come out and say it. . . .”

He drove her home that evening, as he would, after these monthly dinners. She sat quietly beside her in the car, the cabin cool from the air conditioning, the radio playing his favorite CD:

Maybe that's all that we need is to meet in the middle of impossibility
Standing at opposite poles, equal partners in a mystery.
We're standing at opposite poles, equal partners in a mystery.

“Hey,” he said, as they stopped at a stop-light. “I'm glad we're friends.” He looked at her and smiled.

“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.” She smiled back. And they returned to their comfortable silence.

He gave out a quiet sigh, at last, and thought: “A cosmic joke, indeed. But in my alternate universe, it would be different, because it would be you and I. And I wouldn't be afraid, because I would have nothing to lose. Indeed, in my alternate universe, the laws of physics break down: opposing poles meet, you would love me, that way. And we'd live happily ever after.”

[In ancient Greece, a song by a number of boys and girls at the door of the nuptial chamber was traditionally sung in praise of the bride and the bridegroom. This song was called the Epithalamium]

Robert Fulghum, in his book It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It, tells of a tradition celebrated in the small French town of Puyricard, near Aix-en-Provence, where once a year, on the Feast of Saint John, townsfolk would light a bonfire around which they would dance throughout the night. During the intermission, however, between the music of the guitar, shepherd's flute and concertina, the people would not leave, but instead would stand gazing into the fire.

Suddenly, Fulghum writes, a young man and woman, holding each other tightly by the hand, ran and leaped high in the air throug the fierce flames, landing safely just beyond the edge of the coals. As the crowd applauded, the two embraced and walked away, wearing expressions of fearful joy, having tempted the fates and emerged unscathed to dance once more.

It was the leaping through the fire, Fulghum writes, that was at the heart of the Feast of Saint John.

“It worked this way,” he explains. “If you were lovers, married or not, or if you were just friends, even, and you wanted to seal your covenant, you made a wish together that you would never part, and then you rushed the fire and jumped over while holding hands. It was said that the hotter the fire and the higher the flames, the longer and closer would be the companionship. But it was also said that if you misjudged the fire and got singed or came down in the coals on the other side or lost your grip on one another while jumping, then evil would come to you and your bond.”

* * *

I watched an old friend take this leap last 2 July 2006, when he married his girlfriend of four years', at the Fernwood Gardens in Tandang Sora. For those of us who've known the groom for quite some time, even the idea of his having a girlfriend was quite a novelty. You see, David has always been the uncomplicated and wholesome one among us, the quiet, level-headed, serene character who always seemed to have a smile on his face and a dream in his heart. He was a quiet idealist, passionate yet unobstrusive. He remided us of the Little Prince.

So that when we learned that he had found a girlfriend, many of us knew that he was playing for keeps. It was probably the only way David knew how to love. And so from us who watched him from the sidelines (that is to say, heard about him and his girlfriend during Christmas parties or birthday celebrations), we realized that how he was as a person was exactly how he was as a boyfriend: uncomplicated, wholesome, considerate, passionate. It was a joy hearing about them.

What we did not quite understand about the couple, however, was during the time that they had been together, they had become really, really good friends.

It appears to me (and not that I am an authority in this: far from it, I think my track record speaks for itself) that the key to any good marriage is that the boy and the girl must first be good friends. It is the bedrock upon which any solid marital relationship is to be founded. This requirement may seem self-evident and obvious to many of us, and yet it is an ideal that very few people get to achieve.

Indeed, as Kent Nerburn observed, “The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each others laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept up into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.”

I think the reason why Dave and Anna project such a wonderful aura together is because they have genuinely found in each other a best friend, a partner, a soulmate, even, for those romantics among us who still believe. More than the physical attraction and the comfortable presence brought about by proximity and time, I can sense a genuine sharing and intersection of life-goals and missions. Not just mere toleration or acceptance, but a shared common purpose: love is not looking at each other; it's looking at the same direction.

(David and Anna, of course, are flying to Canada by the middle of this month to pursue graduate studies together at Rotman College at the University of Toronto. They intend to live there for five years, as both of them try to learn “how to change the world.”)

But together with this friendship, I think that what I like best about the couple is the innocence by which they have carried their relationship. It is, I think, vintage David: a person who is (and hopefully will be) uncomplicated, unsullied by the disillusionments of the world. He really had nothing to prove, and thus had nothing to prove to Anna. He really had no baggage to carry, and thus had no baggage to deposit at her feet. He really was genuinely satisfied with his life, and thus had no issues to give to Anna to solve. I tried to explain this once, how David could go on with life so placidly and comfortably, and I came to one conclusion: David knows that he is securely loved.

One need only look at his mother, teary-eyed as he was reciting his vows, and you'd know that this is absolutely true.

* * *

And the leaping continued on through the night, where the young of heart and the fleet of foot took their chance before the fire. As the evening grew darker and the fire burned lower, the more cautious made their move. Some did not clear the fire; some jumped too soon and some too late and some ran to the fire only to stop short, and some broke their grip, with one partner jumping while the other held back at the last moment.

At evening's end, however, when only glowing coals remained, there was played a traditional tune signaling a last dance. As the final note of the shepherd's flute faded, the villager encircled the soft glow of the embers and fell silent. the village couple married longest caught hands, and gracefully, solemnly, stepped together over what was once fire. At that signal of benediction, the villagers embraced and walked off into the starry, starry night toward home, and all the fires of love ever after. . . .

I end with a poem by John Gardiner Calkins Brainard, which I think best captures my wishes for Dave and Anna:

I SAW two clouds at morning,
Tinged with the rising sun,
And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one:
I thought that morning cloud was blest,
It moved so sweetly to the west.

I saw two summer currents
Flow smoothly to their meeting,
And join their course, with silent force,
In peace each other greeting:
Calm was their course through banks of green,
While dimpling eddies played between.

Such be your gentle motion,
Till life’s last pulse shall beat;
Like summer’s beam, and summer’s stream,
Float on, in joy, to meet
A calmer sea, where storms shall cease—
A purer sky, where all is peace.

May they walk off from the many challenges of their shared life intact into the starry, starry night, toward home, and all the fires of love ever after. . . .

I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.

When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering days and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.

And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each others presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each others foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the others habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?

The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages. Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination.

Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.

The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each others laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept up into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality. This is the ideal, but not often possible.

If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each others company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new.

Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together. After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect.

When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way he/she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love him/her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.

Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusps of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance does not become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.

There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates. So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts.

I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe. Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed.

We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger. It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter. But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love.

Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presences, two separate consciousness come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken is somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes pulled to the richness that it alone contains. But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex.

So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation. If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers.

If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom.