When two people fall in love, their personal truth galaxies collide. The consequences are the stuff of novels. They may or may not marry. If they do, their joy in the marital truth galaxy they will birth often reflects what their view of the relationship of those who birthed and raised them.
I appreciated the love and joy my parents found in each other while struggling with so many issues of their life and time. I and my seven siblings often quarreled, suffered broken bones, got sick. They knew we were encountering the moral issues associated with smoking, drinking, drugs, and premarital sex. Mildew, rust, grasshoppers and hailstorms set them back financially seemingly every year. They somehow took the Korean War, the spread of communism, the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall, the possibility of a nuclear war, and the building of bomb shelters all in stride. After their rental lease was terminated in their early fifties, they lived on Mom’s teaching salary while Dad learned to sell farm real estate. Through their sixty years together, they never lost their love of God, joy in life, and trust in each other.
As their son, I grew up knowing that their faith in God and their love for each other was tied into their understandings of the Bible and their joy in church. I was well aware of our financial difficulties and didn’t enjoy the half-hour drive to church every Sunday morning and at least an additional night or two each week. So one day I asked Dad, “Why are you a Christian?
He said, “When you can show me a better way to live, I’ll consider that.”
I liked his answer but went my way without bothering to ask what made his way better. I was struggling for acceptance among friends with little interest in religion and being a Christian wasn’t helping.
I would later find the better way I was seeking. It came during the Night of the Little Self, a few years after meeting Martha, the joy of my life for almost sixty years. While experimenting with ways of sharing “my better way,” the courtship letters of my parents surfaced in their effects. They were youth leaders. They saw in each other a soulmate who had already found that better way.
They were teenagers during the Roaring Twenties and would have heard of the horrors of the Great War with its gas and trench warfare. They had lived through the struggles of Prohibition, the Scopes Trial, and the Great Depression. As they wrote, an even greater world war loomed on the horizon that would incorporate all the technological advances for war on the ground, sea, and air. When the economy again floundered, they anticipated the possibility of another great depression. All the while they struggled with the social issues of playing cards, dancing, drinking, and marital impropriety being vividly displayed in the theaters by a rapidly growing movie industry. In these excerpts from their letters you are privy to their thoughts and reasonings on how their better way and their being soulmates helped them face the concerning issues of their time.
Of course, we’ve other issues: the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Iran; the political divisions and self-serving leaders; economic insecurity and AI uncertainty; global warming and environmental catastrophes; mental health and PTSD to name a few. Yet, somehow tied into our personal concerns are the cross-cultural concerns for life, worthiness, disclosure, relationships, brokenness, and death and our desires for personal superiority, social influence, and oneness with life when addressing them.
We’ve each a life of experiences and understandings. Reading these excerpts on how my parents addressed their personal concerns won’t change that but it may awaken in you something missing when addressing yours.
Recognizing A Soulmate
Some possible things to seek in a lasting and joy-filled marital relationship
Resolving Difficulties
Some illustrations of finding ones self-responsibility when difficulties arise
Planning the Life Ahead
Some ways in which freedom, respect, and a new sense of home can be assured in a marriage
