Where is the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 

For since, in the wisdom of God,
the world did not know God through wisdom,
it pleased God through the folly of what we preach-
to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men,
and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers:
not many of you were wise
according to worldly standards,
not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth.

But

chapter 1 of possibly many.

in our very first pre-marital counseling session together,
our counselor mentioned a book, that he thought
would be good for us to read.

nigh unto immediately -- i made justin go to the bookstore with me
--get us a copy -- & 
sit thru me
reading him 
most of the first chapter aloud,
while he was trying to do something else.
(that's pretty annoying. you can say it. 
i know, that's actually,
where i'm going. watch me)

sure, sure, i could tell he didn't find it
quite so profound or thrilling,
but i thought that catch the fever
once he realized how great it was gonna be.
"we're going to be the best at marriage
that we possibly can! maybe EVER."
(that last part, a joke,
i wasn't that delusional, consciously anyway.)

at our next session our counselor tried to
give us the book as a gift.
TOO LATE!  overachiever fungus amongus!
"thank you very much for trying to help us buddy, but we are
already well on our way to building a
PERFECT marriage ON OUR OWN!
we will not be needing any pity-sistance-wisdom!
except of course for the countless books
i will pour over unto obsession!
i'm fine with perfecting as long as that never means
admitting weakness or failure!"

of course i didn't say that, i didn't know that, didn't think that,
that's a hyperbole even now.
at the time i thought nothing of it all, actually,
i just said, "oops, already bought it."
and just as quickly forgot it, because
i got wrapped up in wedding plan-nation.
(a blessing, as it were, because that's the stage that
i was in, and moreover, i'm convinced that reading this book
before actually being married is reading it for naught,
not until actually in the throes of it, does one feel the weight of it.)

but looking back, this event has some eerie foreshadowing of
the tendencies that i was going to throw into our marriage stew.
   (you wouldn't think this would be so shocking,
what we bring to marriage is what we bring to anything,
just somehow amplified.
so for me, in a worst case: demanding, perfectionistic, manipulative, cold, evil.
you get where i'm going.)

and the book, despite how came to us, has been 
altogether helpful in explaining why
sometimes it feels like i'm inside a pressure cooker
and my skin's peeling off.

so that you don't sit in horror left with that thought,
ideally it's only the flaws and selfishness being burned off.
and that's only because they SHOULD.
which makes it an entirely GOOD situation.
still sort of painful to go thru, to say the least,
especially if you are a particularly
proud, perfectionistic, selfish sort.

anyway,
the truly profound thing about the book is that
this cook off towards holiness IS the whole point of marriage,
marriage exists to enable us to better pursue holiness,
to rub each other raw of our sin.
and draws us closer to each other and closer to God.
IF we'll allow it.
the temptation is to withdraw into our own shell,
harden ourselves against, refuse to change,
deny the need to.
and that would be a mistake.
because really who would choose not to grow?
somehow that makes it,
a most exciting, most hopeful situation.
painful still, occasionally agonizing, but it's pain that makes sense.

i intend to unpack this with some personal experiences.
but in the interest of ---not too many words at once---
i have chaptered it.

maybe justin will share a chapter of his experiences too!
maybe, if he wants, no pressure, bunny bear.

this being the introduction to the topic.
and the first time i've said anything in a long time.