Steve the Owl's Blog

One of the things in life that I’ve always found interesting is the question of sacrifice. Sometimes, someone really does give up something that meant everything to him/her without the expectation of something in return for something bigger than him/herself. Other times, there is something that seems like it is a sacrifice, but in the end, it turns out not to be a sacrifice at all.

What Is Beauty?

In Western society, one of the indicators of physical attractiveness for women is hair, and it is usually accented by long hair. While there are periods where short hair becomes more in fashion, such as in the 1920′s, these periods tend to be the exception. However, going to the other end of the spectrum and giving up hair completely seems to be the last taboo for beauty in our culture. While there are some in pop culture who have defied this ideal in the media largely to acclaim, this is still the exception rather than the rule in society at large. However, while some notions of beauty tend to be universal (such as symmetry and proportion), there are some that seem to be more culturally specific, and the question of hair seems to be one of those things. In some cultures, a shaved head (regardless of gender) is seen as a sign of a new beginning or of religious conversion.

What Is Sacrifice?

It is with this in mind that I tell you a story from last year. A while back, just for fun, my then-girlfriend and I were playing around with photoshop, and we saw what we would look like without hair. So, she decided that, after we got married and moved into a place of our own, that she would give away all of her hair to charity. I promised her that if she ever did, I would do the same with my hair, as well as get rid of my beard.

So, I got some hair clippers on sale at the store, and made sure to get extra razors and shave gel. We got married on May 23, came back from our honeymoon May 31, and moved into our new place over the next two days. On the evening of June 3rd, we started the process. Because my wife’s hair is extremely thick, she put it into five pony tails before the donation began. I thought that she could make more, but she insisted that five would be enough. However, as we would soon find out as my scissors were put to the test, five was not quite enough. Also, because of how thick her hair was, the clippers started to overheat, so we decided that we had to finish the job the next day. With her hair less than an inch long, I used the clippers and razor to finish the job, and because my hair was only three inches long (thus making it far too short to donate), my wife got the clippers and razors and finished my hair pretty quickly.

So, why do I say that there are times when something really isn’t a sacrifice? Well, here is what we looked like after she gave her hair away, so I will let you be the judge:

What I think makes her so beautiful in these pictures is not so much the way that she looks, although I do think that she is extremely beautiful in the picture, and I think that it does really bring out her eyes. However, I think that she is about the most beautiful I have ever seen her in this picture because she showed her true beauty by taking a risk about her physical appearance to help someone who may never even know that she was the one who gave them everything she had.

I love movies. One of the things that is so great about movies, and a lot of great art, is the way that it so eloquently describes our conditions and our dreams. I have seen a lot of movies in many genres. One of those genres that I have thought about recently is the romantic comedy. Some versions of romantic comedies are geared towards a heavily female audience, and they get the sometimes undeserved label of “chick flick.”

The Need for Competition

My favorite romantic comedy of all time has to be The Baxter. It was released in 2005 starring Michael Showalter in a movie that examines what happens to the other guy in romantic comedies. In this movie, the other guy is referred to as a “baxter,” the man who is destined to be dumped. This got me thinking: how many romantic comedies that I have seen have the other person who is destined to be dumped because the leading lady is already in a relationship at the beginning of the movie? In Bridget Jones’s Diary, it is a battle between Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy; in You’ve Got Mail, it’s Joe Fox vs. the Greg Kinnear character. In The Baxter, there are actually multiple competing love interests going on involving people who must get hurt. However, this movie is a satire of the genre. I realize that there are times that there are multiple people who love the same person, which means that someone’s feelings will get hurt. However, there are also plenty of relationships that start between people who happen to be single when they meet.

The End… Or The Beginning?

At the end of Bridget Jones’s Diary, the words “The End” are crossed out and replaced by “The Beginning.” However, how many romantic comedies end things right there when the couple have found each other? With the prevalence of divorce, I wonder how many people decided that the reason why they couldn’t be in the relationship any more is because the “new relationship excitement” is gone, and they become junkies for that feeling. However, here is the problem with that line of thought: real life is often what happens after we lose that initial excitement and decide to commit to a lifetime.

Why This Happens

I don’t think that romantic comedies are doing this with a goal of sabotaging the institution of marriage. I think that they are trying to present a storybook fantasy, and they skip over just what “and they all lived happily ever after” really means. So, why do they end there? Because, from a cinematic point of view, the interesting part is the chase. There are some movies and TV shows that illustrate the difficulty of this thinking, although it seems more prevalent in TV where the artists get years to develop a character, as opposed to a few hours.

So, if you are looking for that fairy tale moment, never forget that these movies are meant to convey a fantasy. There is nothing wrong with fantasy at all, but we have to be able to tell the difference between the two, and decide every day to make the commitment to make our marriages work.

Last month, I celebrated my first wedding anniversary. While I do not pretend to be an expert on the subject of marriage, I want to take this opportunity to reflect on the past year, and what things I have learned that I hope will help others as they go along the marital journey.

“I Love My Wife”

In his excellent book Everything and a Kite, Ray Romano says that this is a phrase that is so difficult for him to utter that this phrase could be a very effective field sobriety test for most men, even “quoting” his wife at the end of the book after he explains that, looking back on his (then) eleven-year marriage, that he loves his wife, asking if he has been drinking. Well, I am a teetotaler, so I can say with no suspicion of intoxication that I love my wife. Our relationship was a long-distance relationship until one week before the wedding, when I flew down to see her as she prepared for her trip east for the wedding. It was a big transition for me going from spending hours on the phone every day and seeing her for a week or two every few months, but I can say honestly that there is not one moment over that time when I regret marrying her. It has been even better than I could imagine, I am glad to have her in my life, and I look forward to more anniversaries as the years roll by.

Changes

As I said earlier, my relationship with my wife was over the course of 1400 miles until shortly before our wedding. I am not saying that the changes were bad, but that there were things that would be different for the rest of my life. I am someone who has the tendency to put things in what an old sergeant once called “organized piles.” Namely, I know where everything is, but my system is one that others might not recognize. Ironically, whenever I put things in an “organized” place, that is when I tend to lose them. Needless to say, this is not something that always goes over well. However, this is just an example of give-and-take. There are going to be times when spouses are used to doing things in a different way. It’s not that one way is right and the other one is wrong; they are just different. In cases like these, it always helps to keep things in perspective and realize that it is not the end of the world if something is a little different than “normal.”

A Commitment Means Just That

A few years ago, I went to a friend’s wedding. There were many things that struck me as odd as I watched my friends getting married by someone who received his ordination through the Internet (As a seminary graduate, this could be the topic of an entire blog post on its own.), but the one that struck me as the most odd was the fact that “lifelong” or “as long as you both shall live” or any variant thereof was never uttered by anyone at any time during the ceremony. (The closest was “[y]our life together.”) Within three years, the marriage crumbled. I have heard from many clerics of several different denominations, and they have told me that there are a lot of wedding ceremonies that are performed today without any mention of a lifelong commitment. (One even went so far as to promise “I will marry you as long as my love remains for you.”)

With the divorce rate in the United States stabilizing at somewhere around 50% after a long and steady increase since roughly the Civil War, and a rate that is even higher among those who have already been divorced, one of the most striking things about this trend is the lack of commitment. I considered it an honor and a solemn pledge when I promised to be there for my wife as long as we both shall live. However, I wonder how many couples really do look at marriage as something that is a lifelong commitment, and how many seek that new couple jubilation, and lose sight of their partner when it wears off, as it always will. A lifelong commitment means constantly making an effort to build and maintain what you have. After all, there are a lot of people who wake up estranged from their partner and stunned at this realization. There will be things that are for worse, but one should never lose sight of the things that are for better. This is what I know as I look at my wife, and I thank God every day for her.