Unless

 

 

I listen to the marriage vows

And I searched for a word,

It is so conspicuous by its absence

It is frighteningly absurd.

 

Which one of us in his right mind

Could ever agree to such?

“Unless” left out of the ceremony

Is really asking too much.

 

For better, for worst,

For richer, for poorer,

In sickness and in health,

To love and to cherish

Till death do us part.

 

There is an upside to this

But there is a downside also:

I am satisfied with the former

But the latter is a no-go.

 

 

We must rewrite these vows

And include the word “unless”

For the truth today is:

Marriages are a huge mess.

 

Unless is not in the vows

But it somehow gets in the marriage

And a lot are no longer together

Like the horse and carriage.

 

Unless she maintains her looks

I would have to leave

And unless she cooks and washes

I will no longer cleave.

 

Unless he works for more than me

He will have to go on his own,

Unless, of course, on the other hand

He owns our marital home.

 

 

Unless she fits in with my friends

This marriage will surely end,

And unless he keeps fit

I am getting off at the next bend.

 

“Unless” is certainly missing

From the marriage vows,

One cannot view these conditions

Without asking how.

 

What was good in the past

No longer holds up today,

Put “unless” in the marriage vows

Or marriage will go away.

 

This is the marital behaviour

That we are seeing here of late,

Hence, people are living together

And not tempting fate.

 

 

For some, marriage is a contract

With myriad conditions

So, unless “unless” is added in

There will be objections.

 

However, to the Christian

Marriage is a covenant:

The two shall become one flesh

And they must go the distance.

 

That distance is demarcated

By “until death do us part”,

For those who want to include “unless”

It’d be better not to start.

 

They would be leaving God out

And that’s the recipe for failure,

Marriages work better

Once Christ is in the picture.

 

Stewart Russell © August 16, 2020

 

 

Living Together

In the same house for years

These two had lived together

And with increasing regularity

One would hurt the other.

It was not so at the start

For one of them was not around

But as time went along

The other would later be found.

They did many things together

Like breakfast, lunch and dinner,

The benefits were equally shared

So each of them was a winner.

But the hurting would increase

As the home became more crowded

And often there would be screams

But none of them applauded.

The hurt one would complain

And would do so bitterly

But they continued to live together

In love and harmony.

They even sang together

Way into their ripe old age

And they shared in the applause together

Neither the other would upstage.

But the hurting would continue

When the other got in the way

And as they got a little older

It happened almost everyday.

How they wished they could go back

To how it was before

With just the occasional pain

But that was to be no more.

I will say this for them though

They never considered divorce,

They were meant to stay together

And this they had enforced.

At least until nature said differently

As in life it always will,

One eventually left the other

And for a bit the other remained still.

What an exceptional marriage!

What a great relationship!

Note how they stuck together

In spite of the many slips.

Tongue and teeth will have words

But neither gets rid of the other,

For as long as they both have life

They will always stay together.

So it is with an enduring marriage

And “enduring” is the word,

Tongue and teeth will have a noise

But divorce would be absurd.

  

For whatever they achieve

They must accomplish together

And a great marriage is simply this:

One cannot do without the other.

In tongue and teeth there is a lesson

That we all can take to heart:

What we can achieve together

There is no way we can achieve apart.

Stewart Russell © July 2018