"Partners......"

“It’s not how well the bear dances,” the Russian proverb goes, “but that the bear dances at all.” In such a manner, a friend of mine tied together some thoughts on marriage in a post that began with an excerpt from one of A.A. Milne’s stories. Winnie the Pooh giving his opinion of everybody being “alright”, then going on to acknowledge that he could be wrong. Christopher Robin, however, simply called him “silly” about the latter and correct about the former. Chuck, in wrapping all that together, wrote of holding an unbelief in “coincidence”, the “magic of serendipity”, indeed, comparing it to whatever faith he held in God. He was “aware”, he said, of the Almighty, aware of “grace, bad choices, and uneasy roads”, aware of “change and possibilities”, aware of “hope”. That prompted comment from me, a note typed in haste before driving out to church. His reply was waiting when I returned. In truth, my original words were meant only to register a confession of possessing a similar relationship with my own wife, one wherein the two of us are seemingly connected “inside”, joined, not at the hip, but in our heart. My suggestion that a man could know that same sort of cohesive contact with his Maker, though, brought forth another entry from him, a clarifying of semantics and a declaration of faith. All and well, as far as I’m concerned. His original point, that life is a matter of finding rhythm with the beat, was learned by this old man a long time ago. Spouse-wise, for me, that equates to a tango, neither of us able to make it work without the other; but spiritually, male or female, the waltz goes much better when you allow Him to lead