In a magazine article I read recently, the author compared marriage to a bucket of water. The lid on the bucket had an opening too narrow for a hand, she said, but by dropping pebbles into the water, eventually the water rose to the top and overflowed. Likewise, we wives, by dropping in "pebbles of obedience," fill our marriage with blessings that overflow.
Nice imagery, and not at all a foreign concept to me. After all, my wedding was traditional: I vowed to "obey." Maybe it's just that my ideas of husband-wife roles have mellowed with actual experience, but the article left me puzzled. How often does this author expect that wives, even the most conscientious hyper-conservative ones, have to obey their husbands?
Since the opportunities to Obey seem so scarce in my marriage, and since of course I want my marriage to overflow with blessings, I've been creating obedient moments.
"Are you going to write in your journal tonight?"
"I don't want to. But I will anyway. Ha! A pebble of obedience!"
"Thank you for making bicuits tonight. I love your biscuits."
"You're welcome. Another pebble for the bucket!"
"I can take out the trash, and you can get some ice cream for us."
"Right away. Plop, plop goes the pebble!"
Maybe the author and I are thinking along the same lines despite ourselves. Maybe what she sees as "obedience" I see as "making husband happy because I love him." Besides, he laughs at my jokes. He even thinks the pebbles are funny, and suggested I blog about it. Plip, plop! -- SJ
Monday, January 03, 2005
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2 comments:
Sounds very familiar. So far we haven't had a Submission Showdown in our marriage, and it's not because we're both so introverted that we internalise all Conflict to avoid Confrontation. I like to think that we're both such rational creatures that of course we're in agreement on all important topics, although I was surprised to discover just last week that Michael doesn't like the Beatles. =)
For some reason the pebble image in my mind refuses to plop docilely into a bucket. Besides, I have enough things overflowing to deal with already. I keep picturing myself flinging obedient pebbles into the air, causing them to bounce off DOB's head. So I think I would be better off with "Paper Wads of Obedience." Although I'm not sure what the blessings analogy would be there. But it would be more fun than a bucket of overflowing water.
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