HS #61 2020.8.13
A Recent Wedding Reflection: A Three-fold cord
My favorite book of the Bible is Ecclesiastes. This Book of Wisdom asks tough questions about life and doesn’t give tidy answers. Like any good piece of art, such as the enigmatic smile of Mona Lisa, it has a mysterious, unexplained element.
The author begins one portion: “Two are better than one, for if one falls, the other will lift up. If two lie together, they are warm. And though a single person might be overcome in a fight, two will endure.” But then comes the mystery in the last sentence, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” What’s the point of ending this passage with a THREE-FOLD cord? How does it apply?
Exploring the mathematics, the author is correct. Two strands wound around each other can be pulled apart. That is why our DNA is a twisted DOUBLE helix – two strands that can be separated when needed.
However, an interesting topological situation happens when a third cord is included. This third cord – interwoven with the other two – forms an elegant braid in which all three strands stay bound together.
What does that have to do with marriage? Isn’t the love between two people enough? Is something else needed? Does something else add richness and strength to the relationship just as a third cord adds beauty and strength to a braided rope?
This is the mystery. The author doesn’t tell us what he had in mind – maybe nothing. Perhaps, like good art, he intentionally left it to us to contemplate. However, the rest of Ecclesiastes gives some hints.
The author is skeptical of some things. For example, he writes, “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth.” In other words, he has no special reason to believe in an afterlife. However, there is a noteworthy exhortation further on: “Remember thy Creator.”
The philosopher Simone Weil agrees. She wrote, “I am quite sure there is a God in the sense that I am sure my love is no illusion. I am quite sure there is no God in the sense that I am sure there is nothing which resembles whatever I conceive when I say that word.” Fascinating. So she is claiming that God is ultimately the cause – the source – of love, but who exactly this God is, is a mystery. Kind of like the enigmatic God who described himself to Moses as merely “I am that I am.”
Just perhaps the Psalmist is right when he says, “The young lion roars – seeking its prey from God.” Just perhaps there is a personal God who is ultimately behind even the food of a strong self-sufficient young lion. Did Romeo kill himself because he thought Juliet was dead? Or was it because Shakespeare wanted him to? Similarly, is there an Author behind the good lives that you two have had and who is smiling right now as you join together? In case there is, how might you “Remember thy Creator” in your new home? How might God, however mysterious or known be a third strand?
But in fairness, Ecclesiastes seems focused not so much on God, but on how to live a fulfilled life. The author quickly dispenses with some things: wealth, possessions, accomplishments, pleasure. It’s not clear that the author himself even finds the answer. Great philosophers through the centuries have wrestled with trying to answer this question.
In the 20th century the psychologist Maslow may have succeeded. He formed a pyramid of human needs – like the food pyramid. The base includes food, shelter and security, then higher up love, belonging, respect and finally self-actualization – essentially becoming the most you can be.
But later in life, Maslow realized that there was yet a higher level. He wrote, “The self only finds its full actualization in giving itself to some goal outside oneself, in altruism and spirituality.” The poet Mary Oliver expressed the same challenge, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
What a moment! You are coming here as two individuals – you will be leaving as one couple. Marriage is a semi permeable membrane – it goes in just one direction. Just one wild and precious life and you both are ready here and now to commit that life to each other.
Well and good for the present. But later, as you reflect and plan a rich, purposeful new life together, ask yourselves “What will be the third strand?”
