Reflection on Mark 10:2-9

Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

A little more than ten years ago I married my husband, Charles. It was a second marriage for both of us. A second chance at happiness. An opportunity to “get it right this time.” We’d both been written bills of divorce by our former spouses. We’d both been deeply wounded and were hoping, I think, to find in each other someone with whom we could trust our broken hearts.

As we worked with our minister on planning our wedding ceremony, I recall him advising that we remove the “and the two shall become one” language from the service. We of course agreed. Though we were joining, not only ourselves in marriage, but also our children into a new family unit, neither of us lived any longer under the romantic notion that we could become one flesh. Even if that were a desirable condition, and I don’t think it is, Charles and I were and are both far too independent to ever promise such a merger. Though we complement each other in many ways, we do not hope, to borrow the famous line from Jerry McGuire, to complete each other.

Completion, wholeness, becoming one flesh, for better or worse, is necessarily individual work. Yet I admit, as a spouse, I do indeed try to take on some of Charles’ quest for wholeness, just as he, invariably, takes on some of mine. I see his blindnesses and try to compensate, just as I know he does for me. Most of this goes on beneath the radar of consciousness. It’s a waltz that’s become second nature. But every once in a while, one of us will step mid-dance on the other’s toes. Sometimes it’s just an irritating interruption in what we’d thought was seamless choreography, but at other times, it’s a leather-penetrating stomp that reminds us we are indeed two separate people. Generally we just grimace and wish the other were a better dancer, while silently trying to regain the former rhythm of our relationship. Though increasingly, particularly when our feet are bleeding, we stop the music, hold up a mirror, and say, “Look!”

I’d lie and say these are beautiful moments of growth for us both, but they aren’t. They’re painful and scary and hard. Because every time we hold up that mirror, every time we ask the other to take back some or another projection, every time we say, “Wake up!” we must risk our togetherness for our individuation. We must take back our parts from each other to be whole. Where we will be and who we will be when we finish reclaiming those parts is anyone’s guess. But I’m betting that we’ll still be dancing together.

*This piece has also been published in The Bible Workbench. For more information, please go to bibleworkbench.org.