The Sacred Art of Marriage

52 Creative Ways to Grow Your Married Life

Robinson

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781498233293
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Sacred Art of Marriage explores married life as an art studio with fifty-two tools to creatively craft your spiritual life together. Drawing upon the fourth chapter of The Rule of St. Benedict, this book offers married couples fifty-two weeks of spiritual practices and ancient wisdom to deepen your marriage. Newlywed couples planning and preparing for married life will encounter in this book a variety of creative plans and patterns to put into practice, including daily, weekly, seasonal, and annual patterns of healthy, married living. Journeying through a year of marriage, readers move seasonally through this four-part book, from Summer, into Fall, through Winter, and around to Spring. In The Sacred Art of Marriage, you'll discover ancient wisdom and practical ways to deepen your spiritual life together across seasons as you grow together in God's gift of marriage.

Part One

Summer

Look at the fig tree and all the trees.

When they sprout leaves,

you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near.

Even so, when you see these things happening,

you know that the kingdom of God is near.1

In 1981, I was married to my best friend in July, on a warm summer day. We honeymooned at a family friends’ beach cabin on the coast in Washington State, enjoying the warm sun and long evening light. Over the past the thirty years I’ve officiated at hundreds of weddings and most of them were in summer, many of them outdoors on the beach. Couples often choose to begin their married life in summer. We begin this fifty-two-week journey in summer. I love how Ann Voskamp writes about living with gratitude, including giving thanks for the beautiful gift of summer.

I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on summer humid nights and th4e rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives.2

Marriage is a living expression of God’s presence here on earth. As Jesus reminds us, “The kingdom of God has come near.”3 That is God’s design and hope for you and your marriage, to reveal God’s presence through your life together. This year, as you journey together week by week, season by season, continue seeking the presence of God, the “heavy perfume of wild roses,” and “all the good things that a good God gives.”4

1. Luke 21:29–31. All Scripture quotations are in the New International Version unless otherwise stated.

2. Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, 58.

3. Mark 1:15.

4. Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, 58.

Chapter 1

Love God

Luke 10:27; RB 4:1

From the start, Benedict invites us to become lovers—lovers of God. Benedict puts loving God at the top of his list of tools in the sacred art of life together. “First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and all your strength.”5 Love is the primary purpose of marriage and most significant tool in your life together. God designed marriage for love. God brings couples together to be lovers, lovers of one another and lovers of God. Quoting the Gospels, Benedict calls you to love God with your whole self, heart, soul, and strength. This is the first and most important commandment.

Married couples often replace this primary love of God with other types of love, such as romantic love, erotic love, or loyalty love. These other loves have their valued place in a healthy marriage, but not as the centerpiece. When sexual love is placed at the center, your marriage will suffer. Our physical attraction and sexuality do not have enough long-term endurance to act as the foundation for marriage. The same holds true for loyalty love. Loyalty love demands a spouse to be loyal to my family, my ethnicity, my heritage, my agenda, my plans, and my happiness. Place this form of love at the center of your married life and watch your marriage wither. Life calls for many loyalties, but supreme above them all is our life with God, both in receiving God’s love and offering our heart love to God. Only when God is at the center do all the other loyalties, attractions, and desires we call “love” find their right place.

The foundational love in marriage is the love of God. Couples that grow in their love for God grow in their love for one another. The classic example of this is the sacred marriage love triangle, with God at the apex and a husband and wife forming the base. The closer you grow in your love for God, the closer you also grow together in your love for one another. Another way of thinking about this three-way relationship maybe the following, with God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the foundational base, upholding you as a couple at the apex. The more you rest your life and marriage upon God, the greater strength and love you’ll find together. This first exercise offers you opportunity to converse about your love for God in your marriage relationship.

Week 1: Love Survey

Read each statement aloud. Write in the margin next to each statement a number on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 as “not at all” and 5 as “strongly agree” in relation to the statement. After going through the love survey add up your total. Then read each statement aloud again and offer your thoughts about loving God and loving your spouse.

• I have an idea of what it means to love God.

• I know personally and passionately what loving God is all about.

• I love God with my whole heart.

• I love God with my whole soul.

• I love God with all my strength.

• I seek practical ways to encourage my spouse in his or her love for God.

• Loving God has helped us grow closer together in our marriage.

• My love for God is more important than sex, friendship, family, or career.

• I want to grow deeper in my love for God.

• I am confident God loves me and I am confident God loves my s...