Divine Plagiarism

I must confess to some degree of plagiarism in this post. Of course, as the name of the blog implies, I believe all things to some degree or another are plagiarized from the mind of God. In fact, the better we plagiarize Him, the more beautiful, elegant and original our ideas are. Accordingly, I prefer the New Testament method of citing sources (saying stuff, and its your own fault if you don’t know where its from) to Turabian or MLA. That’s why I’m an apostate academic, and now but a simple stick monkey. Of course, the view out of my office is better than theirs. And I get to push a lot of cool buttons and watch some pretty lights (generally, flashing red is bad.) And I don’t have to say ‘problematic’ when I mean ‘bad.’ Anyways, this is partially plagiarized from any of the number of contemporary Christian books about courtship. (A bit out of character for me, I admit, to be reading Christian bookstore relationship books. Aquinas is more fun, generally.)

So much of our model for relationships sucks. A lot of it is about posturing, an following some set of rules, and presenting yourself in a certain light. It happens between the two people, not between their groups of friends, and it is set up to get people hurt. Even as Christians, it seems we have adapted the world’s dating model and just put a few more interlocks on it. Taking something that sucks and making it suck less is generally a bad plan. As an aside, have you ever considered the similarities between an arranged marriage system and online match-maker systems? Parents, knowing more about the child, take their knowledge of the child and pair them (ideally) with someone who would make a good mate for them. Are online services really doing much different? I’m not saying its bad, just a humorous observation. At least humorous to me, which is generally my primary concern. Back to ‘dating sucks.’ It emphasizes the individual to the degree where it forgets about the group, it solely relies on passions and emotions, not the food that carries a relationship through, and it sets up a casual attitude toward commitment that has reaped a bitter crop in our society‘s divorce rate. So one doesn’t criticize unless one has a better suggestion.

Initial conditions. Where you start has a lot to do with where you end up. And every relationship starts by meeting the other person. Presumably, Rule #1 is in place (Tall is not rule #1. Christian is. Inside joke, sorry.) So, where do you go from there. A great marriage is composed of two people who are simultaneously best friends and passionate lovers. Yet, the environment for growing a friendship is often far different from the environment for writing a love story. Eros grows in a dance, one as passionate as combat, as mysterious as it is intimate. Phileos (probably spelling this wrong) is built in cooperation, built along much more direct terms as two sojourners on the same path. For this reason, sometimes one must abridge the friendship to some degree to make room for the romance. The friendship does change when romance is introduced. It introduces new stresses. In the same way, the romance changes when the friendship begins. So there is a question of sequencing. Dating, I think, gets this sequence wrong. Friendship is the consistency. It provides the will to love the other person even when you don’t feel like it. Romance is the fire. It ignites the soul, but as strong as it is, it is not as consistent. A good marriage needs both, just as a candle makes both light and heat. Dating places the fire before the consistency. Like lighting kindling, there is nothing to feed the fire once the initial sparks are gone. And there is nothing to contain the fires of the romance, nothing to direct the tremendous forces unleashed in the opening of one’s heart. So in the aftermath of a dating relationship, people leave wounded, scarred. Therefore, friendship should lead. So here is the concept of the ‘intentional friendship.’ It is possible to have ‘friends with possibilities,’ a person who you are getting to know better while you explore whether or not they are someone God is leading you to get romantically involved with. In building this friendship, you 1) lay the foundation for a critical element to an awesome marriage, 2) build a relational framework (trust, etc.) to contain the stresses of a romance, if that is where God leads, and 3) put together a graceful failure state for that romance, if it doesn’t go forward, you may be able to return to being friends, or at least can leave on good terms. In the course of that friendship, you have somewhere where you can both explore God’s leading.

Interlocks and Blessings. If there is something assumed in Song of Solomon, it is that no romance occurs without context, and no romance occurs without much support and many blessings. As much as we like the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story, (or ‘Tristan and Isolde’ if you’re snooty) the reality is without a community to support them, their relationship would have a very difficult time progressing forward. Conveniently, the lovers die, so they never have to figure this out. We should have a good way of securing blessings and support from the communities God blesses us with before moving forward in a relationship. This is not a checklist, but rather a guide. There is a sequence to it, and an intentional sequence, but logistics may dictate some variation in the latter steps. And sometimes, there are broken relationships in our lives, which may not be reconciled to God, and those broken relationships (with parents, etc.) should not have a veto over advancing in positive ones. But insofar as is possible, these blessings should be sought.

Blessing #1) God. God loves the other person more than you ever could. She is His daughter first, and He is His son first. Pray that the other person would always love God first, so that she or he may love you more. It is only God that can teach us to love, anyways. This one is a show-stopper. If God is not leading you to move forward, you are neither doing yourself nor the other person any favors if you wrestle Him for them. This is not to say that you can’t keep asking. Or that you can’t pray that He would change their heart. But that is between you and Him, not you and the other person. Only when He says move can you move forward.

Blessing #2) The other person. Obviously, the other person has to be down with a possible romantic relationship. This sort of goes without saying, but the other person is intentionally placed after God and before anyone else, as this is the proper structure to establish from the outset. In a marriage, you love God first, and then the other person more than you love anything or anyone else. (On a side note, a lot of problems come from incorrect sequencing. A parent who loves their child more than their spouse is not doing the child any favors.)

Blessing #3) Families. Your family loves you and cares deeply about you. They (hopefully) want what is best for you. Parents generally know a great deal about you, and have a good deal more life experience and wisdom. This is true if you are 13 or 30. This, admittedly, is not always the case. They will be a tremendous resource for resolving problems and moving forward, and if the relationship progresses toward marriage, will be involved with that marriage (returning to sequencing, problems can arise if parents are not subordinated to spouse in the loyalty hierarchy, though.) So they are stakeholders. The other person’s parents generally have loved the other person a lot longer than you have, and have invested a lot more in them. Your love for their child should gladden them, and their love for their child should be respected. To the men, it is your responsibility to establish proper roles, and you establish them through love and service. One who leads must serve first and always. As the Centurion said, ’I am a man in authority, and I am under authority.’ So, too, must we be. Accordingly, one thing to consider is to place yourself in accountability under her father for your actions toward his daughter (if he is a man of God.) This is not only a visible demonstration of your willingness to respect authority (and hence God’s authority within your marriage,) but will likely provide a very strong check on temptation. And it sets a really strong basis of trust with people who could be your future in-laws.

Blessing #4) Friends. Your friend care a great deal about you as well. Remember, in Song of Solomon, that the friends is the third main character in the story. A new relationship should strengthen the tapestry of relationships, not tear it apart. Your friends should be supportive of a healthy relationship, and should rejoice with you in your joy. They will also be a valuable resource for solving problems (and for thinking of creative dates!) The other person’s friends care deeply about them. It would be good to become their friends as well, for if the other person sees them as cool enough to invest time and effort in, you might do so as well. Note that it may take some effort to win their approval, for they might judge you without having met you (say, based on your job or your surface albedo [it’s a weather word, look it up.] But I digress.) It is better to win their approval than to force the other person to decide between their friends and you. If that’s possible. If all the other person’s friends will never like you for stupid (read ungodly) reasons, no matter what, you might want to consider what kinds of friends that other person is attracting, and whether this is a reflection of some issues that may come out down the road. Which, may cause you to reassess. Friends are good though. They provide counsel and prayer support, so their blessing should be sought.

Cleared Hot. With these blessings in place, you have a wise foundation for a romantic relationship with the other person. Sorry to make it sound textbook. Flying has textbooks, which may be totally boring, but they don’t make flying boring. And they help you not crash and die. Which is not fun. So this is like those textbooks. Its boring, but helps you not crash and die, which lets you enjoy the whole thing a lot more. Which is cool. So this framework gets you to the ‘cleared hot’ point. What you do from there is up to God, you, and the other person. And He writes cooler stories than any textbook I could write.