Lyriel's Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could

Lyriel's Leverage album is sometimes seen as a transitional work between their earlier 'folk metal' and the heavier more Gothic metal of Skin and Bones. A good track to illustrate this, perhaps, is The Road Not Taken with its journey from acoustic guitar and strings to full-band metal for the final chorus.

Be that as it may, this is an interesting track lyrically, based as it is on the apparently deliberate (and possibly fatal) ambiguity of Robert Frost's 1915 poem.

Both song and poem end on the phrase, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference". 

In our time of celebration of difference and our felt right to make our own choices, this lyric is often seen as telling us to walk our own distinct way and choose our own unique destiny. Yet, according to Frost's biographer, Lawrance Thompson, the poem is based on Frost's indecisive friend Edward Thomas, who "whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other." So the original poem is about the waste of energy in pointless regret, always looking back and worrying about "what if".

Which way does the Lyriel song lean? It is, of course, hard to tell as they retain the ambiguity in their selection of lines from the poem.

But there may be a pointer in the final song on the Leverage album, Repentance. This features the following lyric:

"Repentance is a path that we can not walk for long, my dear. ... Come with me and I will show you how to choose a side."

So maybe their take is that you can only waste energy worrying about the past for so long, before you need to commit to one path or the other.

Of course I may just be projecting my own views onto this - it is easily done.

Because I have undoubtedly wasted time and energy myself second-guessing choices already made. Somewhere there is a balance between flexibility and commitment and I don't always hit it, I know.

From a Christian point of view, our calling is to serve God through Jesus wherever we are, in whatever circumstance. It makes sense to seek God's will for the future perhaps, but not to stress too much about it. He is with us wherever we are and, I think, he most appreciates working with us on the choices that we ourselves make and are fully committed to.

So our calling is to commit to our path with God, here and now. Not to worry overmuch about either past or future, but to be fully present in, well, the present. That's where we can make a difference.

Frost's indecisive friend, Edward Thomas, finally decided to commit to signing up for the First World War shortly after, where he was duly killed on the first day of the Battle of Arras. The story is told in this rather interesting article in the Guardian. After finally enlisting he sat down with a friend and told her that he was glad to have made the decision, he didn't know why but he was glad.

Things will happen which will trample and pierce, but I shall go on, something that is here and there like the wind, something unconquerable, something not to be separated from the dark earth and the light sky, a strong citizen of infinity and eternity.

Thirty Years

Long ago but not so far away

It's our thirtieth wedding anniversary today - a fact which is simultaneously rather wonderful and decidedly scary.

A comment on my recent post about divorce reminded me that the key part of the Bible's teaching on marriage is that it is a commitment for life, that it needs to be worked at, and it must not given up on too easily. Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down in the more difficult area of divorce and so fail to see the wood for the trees.

My take on the 'one flesh' picture used for marriage in the Bible is that a marriage is a living thing. It has its own life and growth; it is greater than the individuals involved; and it helps their lives to be more than they would otherwise be. To kill a marriage is a terrible thing.

Divorce, as Jesus tells it, does not kill a marriage. The marriage may be killed by something else beforehand, so the divorce is more like a death certificate recognising what has already happened. Or the divorce route may be taken too quickly, whilst the marriage is still alive; then a second marriage is what kills the first, which is deeply saddening and not a propitious way to make a fresh start.

We live in a fallen world: marriages do die.

A couple of real life (and therefore necessarily vague) examples: I once knew a woman whose husband had run off with his secretary (yes, clichés do happen), moved several hundred miles away, and started a new family, leaving her on her own to cope with their young children. That's about as dead as a marriage can get, yet fellow churchgoers (some of them) were openly critical when she divorced him.

I also knew a slender, petite woman who married in her teens. Her husband turned out to be a violent and abusive drunk. She had the strength of mind to divorce him, but surely he was the one who killed the marriage not her.

On a more positive note, I know many people whose first marriages failed, but whose second marriages are still going strong decades later (or whose long second marriages really were 'till death do us part'). Second chances work out well sometimes.

If there's one thing thirty years of marriage has taught me it's to be thankful, not judgemental. Marriage is a long and difficult journey, and I am a very fallible person: "There but for the grace of God ...".

PS: One thing I should note is that the New Testament is very positive about singleness - not being married. This is because the way the local church is supposed to work is that it too has its own life and growth, is greater than the individuals involved, and helps their lives to be more than they would otherwise be. Not my path, but an extremely honourable one.

Mark: Are Wives Like Cars?

Maybe you know what it's like: you get your first job, you can afford to buy your first car ... and it's wonderful! Beautiful, shiny, the feeling of freedom.

A few years later, the car's a bit less shiny, a bit tatty round the edges, perhaps, doesn't go quite as well as it once did; anyway, you've done quite well for yourself, you can afford better, something that shows off your success. So you trade in your old car and buy a nice shiny newer, better one.

Is that how it is with wives? Is it how it should be?

As a rule of thumb, if you think Jesus is setting down a command, a law, a line you mustn't cross - you probably haven't understood what he is talking about. That certainly applies to what he said about divorce (taking that passage from Mark slightly out of sequence). It begins with the Pharisees seeking to 'test' Jesus: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

We know, from other writings, that this was a live question at the time: not so much the question of lawfulness - that was just the opening gambit - but the question of what was sufficient reason for divorce. Can a man divorce his wife (it was always that way round, by the way) for any reason he fancies (like changing his car), or is it only for specific reasons, such as persistent infidelity or - 'obviously' - infertility.

The Law of Moses is, at first sight, clear: "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her". Incidentally, the point of that 'certificate of dismissal', or Get, is that it states that the woman is free to remarry.

On the other hand, the Prophets seem divided: "For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel," as Malachi puts it. But there are also prophets who talk about divorce as the appropriate response to extreme infidelity (generally as an analogy with Israel), for example in Jeremiah: "For all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce."

Jesus would have been expected to do the rabbinic thing of bouncing around these quotes (and others, especially Hosea), along with precedents and other rabbis' teachings, before coming up with a balanced judgement about when it was right for a man to divorce his wife, and when not.

Jesus doesn't play that game.

The underlying assumption of the question is that wives are possessions. Either possessions which can be freely traded, like cars, or functional items whose job is to provide (legitimate) children ... dynastic enablers, if you like. This assumption is (in)famously reflected in the tenth commandment, not to covet a neighbour's house, wife, slave, ox or donkey.

Jesus comes at the issue from a different angle - for Jesus the starting point is the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 1, where God creates humanity in his own image, male and female together, to work in partnership looking after his world.

Women are not 'things' to be possessed but colleagues and companions to be joined with in true partnership. There are families to raise, together, communities to build, together, and a fallen world to heal, together. That's the way marriage was meant to work ... sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't, but God's intent should be the starting point for discussion.

Divorce is allowed in the Old Testament for when this breaks down, for 'hardness of heart' as Jesus puts it. The commitment, 'contract' if you like, is for lifelong faithfulness to one another, and is before God, so don't treat it lightly.

But 'hardness of heart' is as real today as it was in Ancient Israel. Violence, abuse, abandonment, and extreme unfaithfulness can all destroy a marriage - the wrongdoing is not the certificate of divorce, but the (possibly many) factors which caused the breakdown.

Technically, the most faithful wife, once divorced and remarried, breaks her original commitment when she first sleeps with her new husband. Then the first contract is broken, annulled, and a new contract established, hopefully one which will last, bringing healing and purpose - the way God intended marriage to be.

I usually try not to criticise other church traditions on this blog, but to me the Roman Catholic church's take on divorce and remarriage - refusing communion to the new family - is simply heartless and evil. The new Pope has suggested he wants to change this, but to have treated people that way at all is simply wrong.

So if Jesus isn't giving a rule here, yet another burden, then what is he saying?

Firstly that marriage is a precious union of equals, a lifelong commitment before God. Do everything in your power to make that work for good.

But do also recognise that we live in a fallen world and relationships do go wrong. If so, the Bible gives us a way out. Divorce should never be taken as an easy option, but sometimes, because we all have hard hearts, breaking the old covenant and starting anew, before God, is the only way forward.

God loves you and is on your side, trust him with all that you are.