Sweet Month

There are a few things I can do like a normal person, and getting married was not one of them. I researched every aspect of a traditional Christian union: Why do couples light a unity candle only to blow out their respective wicks? Why rings? Why flowers, and which flowers could I have in my bouquet that symbolized something meaningful? What is the point of a honeymoon?

It turns out, the Latin meaning for the term ‘honeymoon’ is sweet month, a tradition adopted in the Victorian Era where newlyweds would travel around to their families for a month after their wedding, housed and cared for (and fed aphrodisiac type foods to aid in fertility) (wink). When I read this, I knew Drew and I would base our marriage around this concept, each year dedicating the month of our anniversary to intentional sweetness. This is our 17^th year practicing it, and every time we welcome it with open arms. Even when it comes like a stick in a wheel, jarring us out of our sleepiness and toxic patterns. Even when it hurts to wake up to the people we’ve become. It offers us a fresh start, a glorious reset. Sweet Month proves to us it’s never too late to start again.

We have adopted lots of additions to the original concept. I have pages of ideas, some of which make their way into my gifts at a bridal shower. A few standbys: no fighting whatsoever (if we do, we have to pay our kids $1. EACH), lots of affection (my parents read this blog, so I’ll leave it at that), and putting as much effort and intention as possible into caring for and investing in the other person.

If this seems daunting, take heart. Our first four or five years, I recall sitting in a locked bedroom the second or so week of October, furiously scribbling my offenses to throw in his face at 7am November first. This only lasted a few years since I would lose the list and forget the offenses. This exercise was a good teacher for me that the anger that feels vitally important to communicate in the moment, often isn’t.

With almost two decades under our belts, I can attest that each Sweet Month has only increased in effort, intimacy and kindness. It has become a sacred marker in our year where we choose to remember the good. We recall the dirge God played again and again throughout the Old Testament for His people: ‘Remember me, remember the covenant you made in your youth.’ We remember. We play songs from a mixed CD Drew made me when we first started dating. We make time for dates and slow dancing. We linger in places we would have rushed and recall the years of memories that lay between us. Our shared story filled with children and moving and jobs and losses has only grown in its layers of depth and meaning.

There is a lot of talk these days about the ‘war on marriage’ but the enemy, as in most things, is less outside than within. The enemies to marriage are twin devils of assumption and complacency. Throw in an unhealthy dose of the comparison that social media provides, overworked and under-supported parents, with the pressures of the modern age, and you have a recipe that ends in the disaster of self-preservation: the true enemy of marriage.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul gives some of the most pronounced directions on marriage, the importance of investing in it and how it models for the whole world the love of Christ for His Church. It’s not surprising then, that just a few verses later, Paul teaches us how to fight the forces of darkness in the world, using armor that is only meant to protect the front of the body: breastplates, shields and swords. This makes me think that our backs are exposed to the enemy unless we have a partner, a fellow soldier whose back is up against our own. At our best, this has been Drew and I in our marriage, having each other’s backs, but facing out, focused on fighting for those around us. But we cannot be at this back-to-back best unless we take the time to face each other once in a while.

In a way, we will ourselves into being the people we most want to be, but are not. We will ourselves to be kind and curious, humbly attempting to relearn what we thought we already knew. We watch the waters of our relationship settle once again. This yearly reset has stabilized us in ways nothing else has. Just like the lunar cycle it follows, marriage has parts of it that will be dark, but the light will always come. In those moments when it feels like we are ships passing in the night, I know this month will come again, and perhaps the sweetness will linger awhile, maybe at least until Christmas.