Camelot

The dreams of old are hard to kill.  It was in the decade before I was born that a leader arose whose illustriously dichotomous life branded a declaration of the real American dream into the heart of everyone that watched his drama unfold.  His youthful vivacious wife brought an effervescence to the White House that had not been in at least a generation, perhaps longer.  In the eyes of the public, their relationship and leadership were inextricably linked.  In the eyes of the Secret Service, it looked more like the House of Tudor than Camelot.  But it was their favorite movie.  And it was the dream that, even as he floundered  as a President, a husband, and a man, changed him from a lustful rogue into a devoted husband grasping at his Catholic roots before his untimely death on that fateful street in Dallas, Tx on November 22nd, 1963.

She called it Camelot.  It meant all that was right with the world, all that was being righted, the experientially melodious dream.  To her, it was not just a perfect and harmonious country overcoming the staggering odds against it and becoming Utopia.  It was the reflection of perfect fidelity.  And she seemed to understand that one would lead to the other.  On the outside, there were parties, alcohol, cigarette smoke-tinged hours of previously unimaginable disquietude over nuclear war, racial equality, uncanny friendships, cabinet in-fighting, familial tragedies, etc.  On the inside she held firm to the dream.  And in the end, after an exorbitant amount of drama, struggle, and grief, he finally saw the dream, her dream, in all its glory.  And its brilliance evoked a profound metamorphosis in him. 

No amount of pre-marital counselling could have ever prepared me for all the challenges of twenty-five years of marriage.  Early in my marriage there was a ground-shaking clash that scared me so much I called work and told them I wouldn't be in for several days.  We had to get away from all the daily pressures and evaluate what was happening.  The daily grind of working, bills, unfulfilled expectations, stuffed frustrations, and just two different visions of what married life was supposed to look like fell in on us all at once, and the one we promised to love, honor, and cherish all our days had suddenly begun to look like the enemy. 

We were two extremely independent, individualistic social cowboys, the oldest of our siblings, take charge, no-holds barred stubborn people.  She was Union, I, Confederate.  She was conservative, I liberal.  She was one-city dwelling college graduate-conformist, I, a nomadic rebel.  It looked bleak.  For a moment I thought, "No solution for this one..."  We took several days and did whatever.  Nothing.  Whimsical travel.  We talked.  We prayed.  We took the microscope to the ugly truth about ourselves and our marriage.  It wasn't easy, wasn't pretty, wasn't orderly. 

One early morning in our cheap, pine and musk smelling motel room, I was having coffee and devotions with the Gideon's Bible in the night stand, and I read Ephesians 5.  The first verse said, "Therefore be imitators of God."  It had my attention.  How?  What is the scope of definition of that verse???  That's a  T A L L  order.  It went on to describe what absolutely IS NOT acceptable to God.  It admonished me to walk in light and wisdom-which concepts were perpetually dawning upon my intellect as I studied, prayed, and served God.  Then there were 3 verses specifically to wives, and NINE to husbands!  NINE!!!  My mind was racing with the significance of the number 3 as the number of verses allotted to wives was 3 and the number of verses allotted to husbands was 3 times that for wives.  The significance of it, for once, slammed home.

Eve looked at the forbidden tree.  Eve conversed with that damned snake.  Eve picked the fruit and bit into, then handed it to her husband, Adam.  What the hell was Adam doing while all this was going down???  Obviously, his attentions were elsewhere.  My question is, how many years had gone by while Adam was caught up in his own world neglecting the fact that God had given him a helper?  Eve had obviously had a sense of independence (not the good kind) for a while to just go pick some fruit off the forbidden tree while Adam looked on.  Probably checking his fantasy football picks, or buried in the stock-market reports, or shining the chrome on his collector donkey...  Whatever it was, his second priority (God was his first, and still coming down to visit twice a day) had slid down several spots.  Eve handed him the forbidden fruit, and he ate it.  It was his job to be her protector.  It was his job to be her reminder of what was right.  It was his job to provide for her.  It was his job to not allow harm to come to her.  He failed.

Camelot is HER dream.  It is also THE dream.  Togetherness is like an onion, many-layered.  Marriage was created and sanctified by GOD to be between a man and a woman with specific unyielding roles.  Whatever the wife's role, the husbands is 3 times that.  The woman toils, bears children, nests, etc.  It is the husband's job to provide for all that, to protect all that, to be vigilant in his relationship (priest of the home) with it all.  Verse 25 of Ephesians chapter 5 is so heavy, so specific, so utterly sobering, and so clear:  "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for her."  Let's bring into 2018, the year of our Lord:  Suck it up.  Shut up.  Get down and dirty (literally).  Do WHATEVER you have to do to keep her from having time and/or desire to run to the damned tree God said not to eat of.  It is a tree of NEGLECT.  It is a tree of EGO.  It is a tree of EXCESS.  It is a tree of MANIPULATION.  It is a tree of SORROW.  It is a tree of ALONE-NESS.  It is a tree of DESTRUCTION.  It is a tree of DEATH to your marriage. 

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.  So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the Church.  For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. 

And to her, this is the dream of Camelot:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.  This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.  Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

The dream is the two becoming one flesh.  Not just sex.  Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars, 'tis true.  But Camelot is the dream of everything working as it was DESIGNED to.  Jaquelyn Bouvier Kennedy may have not been aware of it, she was just being herself, a daughter of Eve.  Until a really difficult trial called the Bay of Pigs happened and made him take personal survey, JFK was acting just like his father, Adam. She had a dream of her marriage being one of true love, sacrifice, and fidelity-which was intertwined with JFK's dream of a strong and racially united country.  Their ill-religious and drama filled marriage  unwittingly points toward a dream when all men and women fulfill their purpose equally.  When marriages are right, families are right.  When families are right, communities are right.  When communities are right, nations are right.  When nations are right, there is...  Camelot.