It's Like 10,000 Spoons

Ten Thoughts About The Wedding

Handbook of ornament; a grammar of art, industrial and architectural designing in all its branches, for practical as well as theoretical use (1900)

I’m a little late to the party, but I have just stumbled upon the vein of content that is Europeans being astonished and happy about the friendliness of the inhabitants of these fruited plains, the opulence of American pharmacies, Costco, pulled pork, fast food, and Buc-ees. The algorithm being what it is, I watched only one of these posts on X and now my feed is full of them. And they are all charming. I’m so happy for everyone who has come here and is having a good time.

I think it might be the thing, though, that happens when you visit another country and taste all the delights that you’re simply not accustomed to. I, for example, would trade all the grocery stores in my town for a single one of those little mini Carrefours across Europe and I would happily never eat an American burger again if I could just have a real French bakery within driving distance… does this mean I am not a proper American? I suppose it must mean that, though I am very grateful for so many American conveniences and the fact that you can buy dog food in a Pharmacy at midnight.

I didn’t even remember that the World Cup had come to America this year, so distracted by wedding preparations as I have been. How is it going? Is anyone winning? Have any games been interrupted by torrential rainstorms like our very fun rehearsal dinner?

What I’m trying to say is, we survived marrying off our eldest child to a perfectly charming young man and I had a few thoughts and impressions as the day went by me, which, because I still can’t think quite clearly, I will just number though they came to me in no particular order.

1. When I was young and in love and planning my wedding, no one would have called me brave or courageous to do such a thing. Getting married made sense to most people, still, and there were certain well-worn cultural pathways that made marriage an obvious and useful choice. Not so anymore. People who get married today require a certain intestinal fortitude. They are doing something unexpected that gets them little praise and is often baffling for many people in their lives. They are, quite literally, brave and clever and more of us (I’m talking to myself here) should encourage them along the way.

2. Getting married in a Christian way is even more unusual, being so against the cultural grain. Emma and Ben used the real 1662 vows—not the sort of tepidly watered down “1662” ones that are in the 2019 book. If she was going to vow to obey him, he, so the reasoning was in the days leading up to this great occasion, should utter that glorious Scarlet Pimpernel bit, “With my body I thee worship, all my worldly goods I thee endow.” This put her obedience into the proper context, and would, I think, right many of the wrong ideas that cause so much relational suffering.

3. I wondered to myself, as I was racing around putting out fires and telling everyone to simmer down and just do the next job on the list, if the demise of marriage even in Christian circles could be traced to watering down those vows. A man marrying a woman should, if he’s doing it properly, feel a certain measure of fear. They are both doing something “not to be undertaken unadvisedly or lightly.” God is witnessing the act. The man should be a lot afraid of God and little afraid of the woman so that, if he tells her what to do, it is only according to the fact that they are inhabiting the same spiritual Body—Christ’s. This fear shouldn’t make him into a sniveling coward who only does what his wife tells him, that is a wrong and grotesque kind of fear. No, it is the fear of awe that should strengthen him to do his duty to care for and protect his wife for the glory of God.

4. Satan—I’m sure it’s Satan—does not prefer that people get married in a church where they promise to shape their whole lives around each other and God. Both last year and this year, as we got closer and closer to the week, it felt like the fury of hell came barreling at us. As I said on Insta, a couple of hours before the service, our son was in a scary automobile debacle (everyone is fine). For two days there was no hot water in the church kitchen and I had to boil copious amounts on the stove to keep ahead of the dishes. And it just felt like there were those evil little demons everywhere, tripping people and sowing chaos. By the grace of God, that great enemy did not prevail. Everything came off beautifully.

5. One reason I think marriage, as a concept, is increasingly hard for this lost and confused generation is that it is so full of paradox. Nothing can be taken by extremes. Any advice you get or give has to be weighed and measured against all the other advice. You have to give yourself up totally, but also be an actual person. You are both bringing someone in to your family whom you love and, in some strange sense, forsaking that very family. You are fixing your eyes on Jesus and at the same time looking at a real person who is very much not Jesus. The human tendency is to choose one bit of each paradox and cling onto it, like a limpet, so that the other bit falls away. And this makes marriage into a misery. Keeping your eyes on Jesus actually empowers you to see the other person as a person. Letting go of yourself into the hands of Jesus gives you the strength to be a person at all. Letting go of your family—in the right way—is the best way to build a spiritual dwelling full of honor for the past and hope for those who come along in the future. But we too much deal in soundbites, tweets, and memes to find our spiritual footing on this narrow path.

6. Funnily enough, when I was searching out cutlery and glasses (I bought 240 cunning glasses at Ikea the week before the wedding, it was The Best) and china, I came across a bin full of knives in the church kitchen. And when I say “knives” I mean like hundreds. No spoons, no forks, just hundreds of knives. What happened to all the spoons and forks? Where did they go? Was this me being afflicted with an attack of fake irony? Did Alanis Morissette come to haunt us? This mystery will probably plague me for many days to come.

7. This beautiful shawl was made for Emma by the wonderful Kristin whose brilliant substack you should subscribe to:

   

8. I was very happy all day because my daughter was getting married, of course, but also because I found a dress for myself at a Thrift Store for 5 dollars with the tags still on that was so comfortable and easy to move about in that I almost wept. It was a true wedding miracle.

9. I also made Berry Cobbler for 200 hundred people (instead of a cake) that we served with Ice Cream and I think that was really the best thing. Cake is fine, in moderation, but berry cobbler on a hot summer day is to die for.

   

10. And really, that’s what I feel like doing now. Lying down and not exactly dying, but sitting in a chair staring into the middle distance. What a triumph to have survived! I hope I get many months off from having to do this again. In the meantime, I hope all of you will have a really nice day, but only if you feel like it!