Talking About Not Talking
I'm sick of talking about how I don't want to get married. I'm really tired of making fun of the entire institution. I like a good argument, I can't deny that, but it's gotten to the point of being ridiculous. Now if only all the parents and youth workers and teachers and whoever else watched me grow up would stop asking me, "When are you gonna
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Now, I have an odd view on the importance of marriage. It sounds as if I'm saying that marriage is everything and the unmarried are terrible. To the one who rejects marriage for any reason other than service, I would say that they are messed up. A desire for personal independence that exceeds one's desire for mutual love is, to me, rather disgusting. Of course, most don't see marriage as love - and it usually isn't love. So, it's an understandable feeling.
How important is marriage? I think it is the fullest expression of the image of God in humanity. Eph. 5 and Gen. 1 both suggest this. But I also think marriage is not much more than a bandaid for an incomplete (I'd say "sinful", except marriage is based in the pre-fall state) world. It will pass away in the resurrection. I'm not sure how to explain this sense of my feeling of the importance and utter lack of importance of marriage except by suggesting a reading of Ecclesiastes. In Eccl. all things are declared empty/meaningless, and then we are told that the highest attainment of life is to enjoy these things. In fact, I think this enjoyment is the fullest expression of worship of God (Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling" kind of makes this point, when he writes about the "knight of faith") - the meaningless loses significance for itself, and gains significance in its relation to God. But...meh...that will probably be misunderstood...since most Christians are retards about this kind of stuff (in large part because of our iconoclastic gnosticism...and lack of thought...).
I think you might be confusing me with those silly Christians who have placed too much meaning in marriage (and that would be reasonable considering what I've written). But I've "Ecclesiastesized" marriage in my thought. When one puts too much weight on it, they lose the real significance - and seeing this improper weight might lead one to blindness as to the real significance. You have to see it as meaningless/empty, to see the real significance. But you have to understand the importance of symbol to get to that point. And it is a rare Christian (or American) who can even begin to understand (or, rather, pay attention to) the significance of symbols.
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I'll say more later, but I don't think you sound stupid when you say it's about the sex. That seemed to be the dividing line between marriage and everything else. I'm actually encouraged you said it. I thought I was being dumb and crude, but I guess I'm not totally alone.
More later. Maybe. For not wanting to talk about marriage, this has been an interesting conversation with everyone.
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