Lamar Howell's Weblog

FIRST COMES TIME, THEN COMES MARRIAGE

What is time?

How is it defined, or redefined?

Is time a problem to be solved?

Does its meaning evolve over . . . well, time?

Are its rules fixed, its route set?

Does it speed up or slow down, even a bit?

Does it stop going forward or around?

Can the hourglass sands go up and not down?

How do we measure it?
Arbitrarily, or as science?

Is our reliance on time justified?

Do we have to put the numbers in order

or can we set logic aside?

Do we have to make the hands different lengths,

and make them move at different speeds?

Why can’t we just change it to fit what we need?

What is marriage?

Is it clay in the hands of a government potter or

a new language to be interpreted by an expert linguist?

Is it the result of the pull of a slot-machine,

or a Choose Your Own Adventure book?

Is it a dance act for a TV panel to judge,

a planet like Pluto in need of a downsizing,

or a credit rating on S&P’s downgrade list?

What is love?

Is it a mere physical act,

a passing feeling, a concrete fact?

Is it a cause to march in the streets?

Is it laws and legislative feats?

Is it always reason for marrying,

or for benefits like retiring or burying?

And time,

isn’t it an unchanging thing,

an unyielding dictator, an absolute king

with an unbroken record of success?

Are marriage and its bonds any less?

It has rules, just like time

and different hands that make it work.

They’re not the same and never were.

This clock of matrimony was made and finished,

so changing it would only diminish

and confuse us minute by hour

and the little second hands that run around and around.

And love, is it not shown

in times of war, when men are known

to give their blood, life’s full measure

for something so opposed to craven pleasure?

Isn’t that love between men, and pure?

Sure!

And women, who keep the home fires burning

Sleeping alone, tossing and turning

Hugging and weeping during times of distress.

Isn’t that love for one another?
YES!

And those who fought for women’s right to vote,

And for abolition of slaves chained and yoked—

that was love.

So, has marriage then evolved,

its definition and application unsolved?

What is holy matrimony, then?

Is it like this clock? Since when can we make time stop?

We must look back to its institution

The original Timemaker & Matchmaker.

Marriage:

It’s the antidote for the solitary

The recipe for pure physical love

A portrait of the masculine and feminine qualities of God

and the only machinery for making a happy family.

It’s a movie trailer of the upcoming marriage of Christ & His people

So, friends let us not tempt fate,

“What God has joined, let no one separate.”