Lifelong marriage is an act of defiance against all of the difficulties of life, from the catastrophic to the mundane. In marriage, men and women promise themselves to one another, and tell fate to go to hell. The traditional promises that solemnize a marriage are some of the greatest assertions of human agency, and therefore of human dignity, possible. Our freedom is not realized in the possibility that we might do anything, but in doing what we have said we will do. Human freedom is consummated in the voluntary self-limitation of the promise made and fulfilled. In the making and keeping of promises, we assert ourselves against the world and the future as acting agents, not mere reactive beings responding to circumstance. The power of oaths in legend, literature, and law is due to their assertion of free human choice and will within the cosmos.
As Hannah Arendt observed, it is the making and keeping of promises, along with forgiveness, that put an end to reaction and allow us to begin something new. Seen from this perspective, marriage vows are not an ending that establishes a static state, but a beginning that allows something new to flourish. In keeping our marriage vows, we renew our freedom and dignity as acting agents while uniting the two halves of the human race in a union that continues it.
And, for Christians, this provides a glimpse of how marriage is a source of grace and an image of Christ and His Church. Jesus Christ spent a life in humble service to establish His Church, finally dying for her. Nothing that He asks of us in keeping our marriage vows is more difficult to endure than what He has already undergone for our sake.
-Nathaniel Blake
Promise. Too many people, even committed Christians, no longer contemplate married life’s difficulties and tragedies with the simple “I made a promise“. They have allowed the secular world to intrude into that promise with a silent “except” or “but” after it and adds trailing escape clauses. Four simple words “I made a promise” is a powerful tool and is one that has kept me within my voluntary bounds for all these years. Life hasn’t always been kind at all these past 37 years (and sometimes horrifying and too much to bear) but I’ve always been mindful of that phrase. Believing in the Almighty makes one realize that one’s vows aren’t just to your new wife or husband but are equally made before and to God Himself.
I made a promise. Four simple words that are far from being simple in real life some may say. My response is that often we cloud everything up with lots of fluff, flash, and foolery in order to self-rationalize our positions when love is intruded upon distrust, failings, cheating, and being ignored (as in “I’m not getting out of this what I expected and what *I* need”) and that one wants to run away from it all. I made a promise clarifies things, at least for me, and sweeps all that away. All that other clutter vanishes and one is left with the question “what will I now do about my promise?”. Clarity almost always ensues.
In this time when everything seems to be about self-gratification, the “Me generation” has made it all about ourselves and that others need to cater to MY needs. Certainly that is what our society has engendered these last 50 years – and to our detriment, I will add. Honor, commitment, duty, one’s word is their bond and the like; values that Society has now deemed “quaint” and of little respect because they all imply that the current philosophy of society is wrong and headed in a wrong direction. Thus, I’m not surprised that few people think this way.
“I made a promise” is a radical 180 from that society because its very premise is that it ISN’T about me – it is about my wife and my Lord to whom both received a promise from me. At that point, it is about me but not to myself selfishly but to others – what will my next action be? My “self” fades and others are raised – what will I do about that promise?
I have kept that promise for better or worse to myself thus far. That said, even I have to admit that I must remind myself that “I made a promise”.
(H/T: MercatorNet)
