Now, believe it or not, I was actually engaged one time long before I ever met Natalie.  I was young and aimless at the time and a “great love” seemed to me to be the perfect medicine for a sorely lacking life.  So, wouldn’t you know it, I met someone and it wasn’t very long until I found myself down on one knee, popping the big question. 

The engagement, well, it didn’t work out, thankfully.  I say thankfully not because she was a bad or deficient person, but rather because we were just so wrong together.  Now look, it took nearly 10 years before I met the right one.  And when I did, I was able to recognize that what had taken place a decade prior wasn’t love.  Not remotely.

One of the great problems we have in America right now is that, just like me way back in the 1990’s, we’ve gotten love wrong.  Now, what do I mean by that?  We’ve taken a misshapen parody of it and substituted it for the real thing.  But you know how it goes, once you get used to something, you just kind of stick with it, rarely questioning if it’s right or even the best for you or others.  The status quo is oftentimes a darned hard thing to change.   

Take for example Navy men that served in the Second World War.  Many of them used to add salt to their coffee.  Most people didn’t know why, but the sailors did.  You see, the water filtration on naval vessels at the time wasn’t that great.  Sure, it made the water drinkable, but it always contained a higher measure of salt than regular tap water. 

When you understand that, their adding salt makes sense, doesn’t it?  After all, many of them were youngsters when they sailed out into the great blue unknown.  Perhaps they’d never drank coffee prior to stepping on board ship but there, amongst older and more experienced crewmates who were guzzling the stuff, they yielded to the social norm and began drinking it themselves.  And what did they get?  Starbucks Italian Roast made with purified water?  Nope, they got coffee with a noticeable tinge of saline. 

Well, when you first get exposed to something, it has the potential to set the goal posts, doesn’t it?  So, their version of coffee made the right way had salt in it and many of those seamen stuck with it the remainder of their lives.  If they were drinking java, they added salt.  It was just the way it was.

Now think for a moment.  Think about the many ways love is portrayed to us in media.  Rarely do we see stories about octogenarians accompanying each other on a never-ending parade of doctor’s appointments just to be with one another.  No, more often than not, what we get are these tempestuous affairs with beautiful people necking in rainstorms or some other foolishly romantic place.  Well, maybe they’re not all-in rainstorms but you get the drift.  In fact, as I watch television and movies more and more, what I see being portrayed as love is that same, wan, incomplete version I was seduced by way back when.  There is love involved, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not for the other person, not really.  t’s for themselves. That is to say that, like most things these days, we’ve taken something and made it more about ourselves than anything else.   

Christian pastor Tim Keller wrote an excellent book called simply, “The Meaning of Marriage.”  In it, his enumerates what he sees as the root cause of the dissolution of so many marriages.  He opines that what should be the apex of love, Christian marriage fails because the man and the woman have misapprehended the purpose of it.  Too often, he writes, the belief is that the other person “will complete me.”  Remember that line from the movie?  Well, it’s a great line in an enjoyable movie but it shouldn’t be taken as the Gospel truth.  Because it isn’t.

For example, “You complete me” thinking often sets the stage for marital problems.  Keller, I think rightly observes that when a marriage is forced to bear the weight of personal expectations for happiness, completeness even, then it burdened beyond what a marriage can withstand.   

“You complete me” thinking gets one thing right, admittedly.  Love does complete us.  But it isn’t love for another person that does it.  Nor is self-love what puts the cherry on top of our lives. 

One of the things we in America do very well is, sometimes subtly, sometimes with the cacophony of banging cymbals, is to always put the emphasis on ourselves.  In a way, America’s altar stands within me, myself, mine and I thinking.