The Arena of Marriage, by Fr. Marc Dunaway

From the window of the church office a single light spills into a quiet night. But inside the room a battle rages. The wife explodes, "He doesn't love me. He treats me like one of his customers. All he cares about is his work!" She sobs into a kleenex. The husband retorts, "She won't get her hooks out of me! Nothingmakes her happy. Maybe I should just move out." The priest, tense, but accustomed to such conflict, waiting to speak, inwardly prays that he can help them.

Is this the bitter end of a Christian marriage already ten years old? Or is it the critical beginning for a new stage not only of marital, but of personal spiritual growth as well? By the grace of God and with the commitment and effort of both husband and wife, it will be the latter.

Such a volatile scene is not uncommon. Most marriages will have their share of explosive battles along with a good portion of routine conflicts and difficulties. But these conflicts are not all bad. In fact, they are very important, because for the vast majority of Christians, marriage and family life are the divine workshop of God, where He will use just such hammerings to chisel away the rough edges of our fallen nature and make us ready for reshaping in His own image and likeness. It is the marriage relationship, and all that comes with it, that reveals our hidden flaws and forces us to deal with them, if we are to survive and to prosper spiritually, psychologically, and emotionally.

And yet, as an Orthodox priest and pastor, I have observed that even sincere, Orthodox Christians sometimes fail to recognize the potential for spiritual growth present in their daily struggles to be good husbands and wives and good parents. I think one reason for this might be that nearly all the spiritual writings from our tradition come from monastic sources. And while there is invaluable spiritual insight to be gained from them, and all Christians should avail themselves of the benefit of reading this priceless literature, still, there are aspects of married life and family life which monastic writings for the most part do not describe, simply because they occur in a different arena—the arena of marriage.

OUR COMMON CALLING

From the Scriptures and from the tradition of the Church, we know that the goal of the Christian life is growing in communion with God, often referred to as theosis or de: fication. And we also know that to reach this goal requires not only an absolute and unwavering trust in God, but also a certain acceptance of personal struggle and sacrifice—in a word, asceticism. No Orthodox Christian is exempt from this struggle, married or monastic, layperson or priest. This is common to all.

The asceticism of many of the great Orthodox monastics is well-known. There are the desert-dwellers., the stylites, and the great fasters, to mention just a few. Also in the writings of the spiritual Fathers of the Church much is written about prayer and fasting, ascetical disciplines necessary for every Christian. But what about the day-to-day lives of those whom God has called to the sacrament of marriage? What ascetical opportunities are available to them?

One of the most well-known Russian saints, Seraphim of Sarov, clearly taught that the greatest ascetical duty of the monastic is not fasting or study or any other similar discipline, but rather voluntary obedience to a spiritual elder. This human interaction requires the emptying of one's own will and bending to the will of another, thereby exposing pride and dealing a death-blow to self-centeredness, the chief obstacles to spiritual growth.

I believe the same principle is involved in a marriage relationship when two people try to work together. In marriage, though, this emptying of oneself is not so much obedience to another, but rather the cooperation or coordination of two together, a dance of love and submission, the mutual losing of one's life for another. The dynamic of the monk coming before his elder, seeking spiritual guidance and direction, has its married-life counterpart in a husband and wife sitting up late into the night, working out a disagreement. The result of both should be the same—humility, repentance, unity.

If married people will see their life from this perspective, they can be inspired to embrace all their marital struggles with faith and to believe that in and through them God will reveal His will in their lives and bring about their salvation. They will not imagine that their spiritual work is something separate from their family life. They will not think that to accomplish great acts of asceticism they must look far off to the ways of monks and nuns.

Instead they will see that such opportunities are all around them, right under their very noses. They will settle down to fight the good fight where they are, and slowly, bit by bit, through the grace of God, they will be transformed to the image of His will. Let us look at some of the ascetic struggles unique to marriage and family life.

THE CONTEST OF RELATIONSHIPS

Foremost is the effort necessary to build a lifelong and intimate relationship with another human being. One of the early goals of married life is for two people who possess separate backgrounds and differing personalities to form together one common vision of life, one shared understanding of their priorities and direction as a couple and as a family.

In order for this common vision to be formed, it is critical that a married couple learn to communicate, that is, to identify and express their own feelings and to listen to and understand the feelings of the other. This kind of communication requires honesty, vulnerability, courage, humility, kindness, repentance, and commitment.

Every married person soon discovers that such communication requires great effort and often emotional pain. It is a common experience for married people to discover that their spouse is like a mirror in which all of their own faults are exposed and magnified. But the humility and endurance exerted to confront these sins, to talk openly and constructively about them with one's spouse, and to use this talk to dig down and uncover the root of personal sin, can be a tremendous spiritual work.

I find that as a priest I am frequently encouraging married couples to keep up the good effort in this area and not to despair. At the same time I am saddened by those few who for one reason or another cannot or do not avail themselves of this most valuable aspect of their life together. I would even say that in this communication between husband and wife there is something closely akin to the cleansing and healing which take place in the sacrament of confession.

THE CONTEST OF FAMILY

The relationships involved in marriage are not limited to that between husband and wife, of course. There are also (in most cases) children, and with children come not only new sources of joy and delight, but also new opportunities for self-denial and for battling sinful passions.

Just ask the mother who for twenty years plans and prepares seven thousand sack lunches; or who, when she imagines her son fighting in a war, wrestles with sickening fear and anxiety. Ask the father who is awakened in the middle of the night by a small voice, "Daddy, I feel sick," and a moment later must deal once again with the previous evening's dinner; or who, when his son
knocks over the ceramic lamp one more time, is brimming with anger and jerks back his hand to strike his child. They will tell you they see their shortcomings every day and as Christians struggle to overcome them.

Children require the very life of their parents. And as all parents know, you can, at times, actually feel this life being drained away. It is a frightening thing. Still, when it is given with love and with faith in God, the giving is a great spiritual work. The Lord said, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends" (John 15:13). Surely these comforting words can apply to those good parents whose martyrdom is measured in tiny increments portioned out over an entire lifetime.

With children also comes the responsibility to create a family, a home where children are nurtured and where all are surrounded by love. This is one of the meanings of the crowns given to a married couple at an Orthodox wedding. They become rulers of a small kingdom, founders, in a sense, of a small church, a place where God is worshiped and His will desired. Even this, however, cannot be an isolated kingdom, withdrawn from the rest of the world.

A family has a certain corporate responsibility, as well, to be an instrument of service and benefit to others. This is clearly expressed in one of the prayers of marriage when we pray for the new couple, "O most holy Master . . . fill their houses with bountiful food and with every good thing, so that they may give in turn to those in need."

Truly the raising of children is the most demanding call to self-denial that most adults will ever engage in throughout their lives. Oh, that our culture at large would return to such an understanding and stop the incessant beating of the drum of hedonistic self-gratification! God knows our children are suffering desperately because of it.

THE CONTEST OF STEWARDSHIP

Another area requiring ascetical effort in married life is the immense responsibility to manage property, money, and material possessions in a godly way. For married people with children, ownership of these things is not an optional luxury; it is absolutely and unequivocally required. And, again, the godly management of material goods calls for wisdom, discipline, and often self-denial.

Unfortunately, the present American culture seems obsessed with simply acquiring and consuming more and more things in an insatiable desire for greater and greater pleasure. The Christian family, therefore, must constantly struggle to turn a deaf ear to these siren calls, to mute the endless barrage of advertisements, and to live both as good stewards of what God gives them, and also as pilgrims looking for a much better world to come.