Two are better than one
Recently Tim and I celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary. We’d intended to go mountain biking, but time constraints, heat, and fatigue led us to skuttle that idea for a few weeks. Instead we had a simple celebration – a quiet dinner at a nice restaurant followed by walking around downtown, ending up at the library where we checked out some travel videos. That’s because we are dreaming and starting to plan for next year’s anniversary of which the key components will be a trip across the Atlantic, bicycles, and (number one) – babysitters.
In honor of our anniversary, here’s a piece describing the sanctifying effects of marriage written in Suzanne Clark’s inimitable style.
Al and I were in Williamsburg celebrating our nineteenth anniversary. We stopped by the brickyard, which took shape in my mind as a metaphor for our marriage. Some boys were trudging around barefoot in the mud pit, working the clay, softening it, the way habits and customs go into the common pit to be squeezed and trampled. My sense of humor (Irish, I’m told) exalts in far-fetched storied being passed off for truth. But this had to go, right at the start. Al wasn’t amused at my telling him I’d been a ping-pong champion in high school, then finding out when we began our first game (he leaning forward, poised for serious play) that my idea of hitting the ball was to zig-zag it off the far wall before losing it under a sagging, overstuffed sofa.
But neither did he get by with one of his outrageous quirks – namely a weakness for hitchhikers. Not long after we married I had to dig my heels in and tread upon his practice of stopping for the hitchhiker with the stringiest hair and glassiest eyes, the one with the strongest smell and rattiest tank top. He was, Al figured, a likely candidate for the Gospel. I figured the candidate would reach any minute into that brown bag hitchhikers always carry to pull out a gun and shoot us.
These were the big oddities, not too hard to quash. It’s the small subtle particles in the clay – sarcasm, criticism, nagging, complaining- that take the most time to pick out. After the clay is stomped, the bricklayer pulls off a sizeable slab to knead on a board like bread dough. Another laborer takes the mass and works through it to locate and remove any hard lumps or pebbles. So it is that through love’s kneading, the small impurities arise, and the mingling of flesh exposes flecks of malice. The purified clay goes into a wooden mold and is flattened and fitted with a wooden tool called a striker. Then the brick is taken to a sandy drying area, loosened from the mold, covered, and stored until firing. In Christian marriage, the mold is Jesus; the flattening and fitting is the clash of passions, the death of willful dreams. Over and over, year by year, the relationship tears and mends. Grief is the striker, shaving off the overlay of temporal longings that deaden our hunger for God. But the final smoothness and solidity of form makes a fine brick building.
In Williamsburg the bricks lie covered all summer until October when they are loaded into the furnace. The firing takes six days. About this time the brickmaker starts looking for a yellow glow, the sign of readiness. Too white a heat means an unstable brick.
Similarly, at times my partnership with Al seems dormant – long seasons of dullness and distance. Then comes the trial – the casting into flames- Emily is run over by a car, Al’s father draws his last breath as we look on. The pain is fierce. The whole inner life glows like a savage sun. The Brickmaker watches and waits. Now it is time. He plucks us out to cool and harden. Come spring the new house will be built, not of clay but love refined by the rigors of the craft.
- Suzanne Clark
Proverbs 27: 17 Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another.
Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
In honor of our anniversary, here’s a piece describing the sanctifying effects of marriage written in Suzanne Clark’s inimitable style.
“The Brickyard”
From Sketches of Home by Suzanne Clark
From Sketches of Home by Suzanne Clark
Al and I were in Williamsburg celebrating our nineteenth anniversary. We stopped by the brickyard, which took shape in my mind as a metaphor for our marriage. Some boys were trudging around barefoot in the mud pit, working the clay, softening it, the way habits and customs go into the common pit to be squeezed and trampled. My sense of humor (Irish, I’m told) exalts in far-fetched storied being passed off for truth. But this had to go, right at the start. Al wasn’t amused at my telling him I’d been a ping-pong champion in high school, then finding out when we began our first game (he leaning forward, poised for serious play) that my idea of hitting the ball was to zig-zag it off the far wall before losing it under a sagging, overstuffed sofa.
But neither did he get by with one of his outrageous quirks – namely a weakness for hitchhikers. Not long after we married I had to dig my heels in and tread upon his practice of stopping for the hitchhiker with the stringiest hair and glassiest eyes, the one with the strongest smell and rattiest tank top. He was, Al figured, a likely candidate for the Gospel. I figured the candidate would reach any minute into that brown bag hitchhikers always carry to pull out a gun and shoot us.
These were the big oddities, not too hard to quash. It’s the small subtle particles in the clay – sarcasm, criticism, nagging, complaining- that take the most time to pick out. After the clay is stomped, the bricklayer pulls off a sizeable slab to knead on a board like bread dough. Another laborer takes the mass and works through it to locate and remove any hard lumps or pebbles. So it is that through love’s kneading, the small impurities arise, and the mingling of flesh exposes flecks of malice. The purified clay goes into a wooden mold and is flattened and fitted with a wooden tool called a striker. Then the brick is taken to a sandy drying area, loosened from the mold, covered, and stored until firing. In Christian marriage, the mold is Jesus; the flattening and fitting is the clash of passions, the death of willful dreams. Over and over, year by year, the relationship tears and mends. Grief is the striker, shaving off the overlay of temporal longings that deaden our hunger for God. But the final smoothness and solidity of form makes a fine brick building.
In Williamsburg the bricks lie covered all summer until October when they are loaded into the furnace. The firing takes six days. About this time the brickmaker starts looking for a yellow glow, the sign of readiness. Too white a heat means an unstable brick.
Similarly, at times my partnership with Al seems dormant – long seasons of dullness and distance. Then comes the trial – the casting into flames- Emily is run over by a car, Al’s father draws his last breath as we look on. The pain is fierce. The whole inner life glows like a savage sun. The Brickmaker watches and waits. Now it is time. He plucks us out to cool and harden. Come spring the new house will be built, not of clay but love refined by the rigors of the craft.
- Suzanne Clark
Proverbs 27: 17 Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another.
Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
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