I wasn't going to go. After all, I do not have a significant sweetheart other in my life, and sometimes I would just rather not be reminded of that. But I received an email invite from one of the music faculty that he is performing a piece he wrote for this special chapel, and I don't want to miss that. So I go.
On the platform are 4 couples in various stages of their married life. They sit together cozily while the chaplain feeds them questions about what married life is like, what helps, what hurts, what is important. We laugh and applaud their answers, and I can identify with many of them. It is clear that marriage is something you have to work at, but it is so totally worth working at.
Then the song the professor wrote. Not about thunderbolts and passion and gooey mush, but about how love is something that grows over time, about how he loves his wife more now than when they first met, about how good it is to spend a long time with the same person. What a different message than we ever hear from Hollywood.
Love is not a rip-the-clothes-off animal urge that can't be helped, not something that is exotic and fleeting. Love is a learned commitment that improves with time. Nice. We saw that in the marriages of the couples who shared. It is good to hear the other side for a change. I am glad I went.
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