Fifty years of marriage is the essence of a journey that spans uphills and downhills, goals achieved; unexpected joys, and times of failure, disappointments, and offenses that sought forgiveness. The thirteenth chapter of Corinthians is a discipline and a constant for the days and years. Love is not arrogant or rude, love glories not in one-upman-ship or being right, love suffers and is kind, love hangs in there. And ultimately this delicate, gentle but tough bond supersedes all else and becomes the one imperishable gift we can have if we are humble enough to receive it.
It is because of our wounds, our pain and our sadness, that we turn from the outer world and trace the thread of our own darkness back to its source. It leads us through the barriers of pain to the place of our own healing. But in the very process of making this journey the light of consciousness which we carry with us transforms our darkness. The individual who arrives at the source is very different from the person who set out upon the quest. During the course of this journey we have to accept and integrate what we find within us -- our pain and our anger and all the many forms our darkness has taken. ... We will have to accept ourselves as we really are. This then will be the chalice into which the Divine Wine can be poured.