Sunday 2 Reflection

An ordinary loving

Have you ever wondered about the happy couple in today's gospel reading? Here is one very dodgy, totally unsupported, unsubstantiated, apocryphal but charming story about them.

They first met at Passover. He was shy and awkward and so was all the more attractive for his lack of pretension. She had a winning smile and big dark eyes. At some point while the prayers and readings droned on, their eyes flitted across the room to each other and in that age old magic that has been around for centuries and yet is always fresh and exciting, a new chemistry began and lives were changed forever. Ruben and Milka courted furtively, secretly and passionately until they were the appropriate age. They inevitably became engaged with much dancing, wine, laughter and at last in public.

The whole extended family would be invited to the wedding which would last for several days and there would be much rejoicing and dancing and wine.

Milka was a distant cousin to Elizabeth, who was a cousin to Mary and so Mary, Jesus and his friends were invited. Our gospel  tells the story of Jesus beginning his ministry at Cana at the insistence of his Mum. Everyone is pretty much oblivious to the shortage of good grog. Certainly Reuben and Milka had other things on their mind, as well they should at their wedding reception.

But what happened to Reuben and Milka afterwards when all the guests had finally dispersed back to their homes?

Theirs was an ordinary loving, an ordinary life. There was pleasure and delight and most of the time not much seemed to happen. There was the daily routine of eat, sleep, work. Reuben would help with his dad's olive grove and tend the motley herd of sheep. Milka would weave and bake and one day seemed pretty much like another. But always there was a daily walk along the olive trees in the cool of the evening. Not much was said in these strolls; the time together spoke for itself and all that needed to be said was said by Milka and Reuben just being together. There were happy days and some less so, but always this walk to seal the day with a kiss of silence.

That was until Milka began to suffer with morning sickness. Reuben was ecstatic of course. A proud father to be. An heir to carry on the family name, inherit the olive plantation and build up the herd.

Milka in her unrelenting vomiting and nausea was not as cheerful.

“But darling, it will pass” cooed Reuben as Milka ran from their tiny home for the third time in the hour. And when Reuben tried again to tell his beloved how wonderful it was all going to be when their son arrived (of course Reuben knew it was gong to be a son) Milka let her angst be known. In harsh, understandable words that could not be retrieved, she rattled off a long litany of angst that bewildered, frightened and pierced Reuben. “I hate you sometimes” were some of her words. There was no walk down to the olive grove that night, nor the following night. Silence wrapped herself tightly around the couple and stifled any prospect of conversation.

Two days later when Milka was again expelling her hard won breakfast, there was a gentle caressing hand on her shoulder and a whispered ‘I’m sorry’.

It was an ordinary loving.

The walks down to olive grove continued although a little slower as the Milkah burgeoned with new life. Oopsee arrived 7 months later. The labour was fraught but fruitful. This time Reuben knew to just let his hand be clasped and simply be there. They enjoyed their daughter Oopsee as Oopsee enjoyed them. There were the ordinary sleepless nights, the worries when Oopsee got sick and when she nearly fell into the well.

It was an ordinary loving and an ordinary life.

And always the walk around the olive grove in the cool of the evening. All three of them now at different gaits and with different conversations.

At one level Reuben, Milkah and Oopsee’s life was unremarkable. Their loving was ordinary, their life was humdrum. I tell you this fictitious story to make the point that in their ordinariness Milkah, Reuben and Oopsee were anything but ordinary. They were spectacular  in their endurance, their patience, their contrition, their honesty and their grit in simply holding on together when everything else was unravelling around them. Even when they didn’t like each other very much, they still loved each other and that my friends is an exquisite and precious commodity. It is extraordinary.

Today is the last Sunday of The christmass season. The manifestation season or showing forth would be better words. God comes to and loves us in our ordinary and mundane, in a mucky stable, in tears and laughter, in feasting, in morning sickness, in walks in the cool of the evening and the lingering looks over a candle lit table.

And if you want to see something remarkable and extraordinary then all you have to do is look at an ordinary wedding photo. The water of our ordinary life which we think is pale, insipid and colourless, is in fact colour full, potent and makes our heart glad and it God’s heart very glad indeed.