Perfect...

"You make me want to be a better man".

Melvin Udall - As Good As It Gets.

"The structural feature of being human is being a lover... The question is not whether we love but what we love".

James Smith - Desiring the Kingdom.

Back in the early 80's, my young marriage had hit something of a wall.
Due to my inexperience, I'd messed up, but it didn't take long for me to begin to recognize my idiocy and start getting things resolved so, long term, all would be well.

Once the pieces started to fall into place, I thought it would be a nice idea to have a few days away with my understanding wife, so booked what I expected would be a good location for a weekend break. The hotel was described as overlooking the Thames in a 'quiet area', and had its own restaurant, so it sounded great for a short period for some quiet, a nice meal and an opportunity to commence the road to recovery.

It soon become clear why the location had been so 'reasonable' in respect of price.
The hotel overlooked a fuel refinery (!) and the evening meal was undercooked and inedible. Things were so bad, in fact, that we were offered another weekend break as compensation. Needless to say, we didn't go back, but my comedy of errors actually proved exactly the right tonic to bring some unexpected charm into the moment, and my wife and I did have a restorative weekend - elsewhere - as a result.

One of the things that genuinely commenced at that point - though it would grow over many years - was an essential appreciation for the significance of the partner God had given me, and a growing awareness that I could so easily be mistaken, not just concerning a good location or just about the basic requirements of marriage, but about the astonishing gift that is woman, especially when she is your wife.

The church has made some big mistakes when it comes to what the faith is all about. We've seen ecclesiastical power hold sway through those who have sacralized all manner of bad practices and proclamations (Rome has been the mother of such misery in the West, but many modern 'christian' movements have followed a similar path). We have often turned the truth thereby into a strictured system of external moralism (what we must and must not do) that would have no doubt delighted those Jesus so thoroughly condemned because they only knew the hollow shell of an external form of righteousness, and we have so painfully reduced both the value of Women and the goodness of the material from around the time of Augustine onwards.

Much of this was a result of some very bad decisions as the church sought to grow first, with the lessening of imperial persecution and then amidst the many pagan aspirations of the Hellenic and then Germanic world.

I say all this because there are two key things I think we all should consider afresh when we seek to unpack a biblical understanding, especially of women.

First, Eve wasn't made like Adam.
Adam was made, we're told, from the dust of the earth, and needed God to breathe life into Him, but Eve was made from Adam - from what was already living, and as such, she become the mother of all living (Genesis 3:20).

Secondly, Genesis clearly shows us a work of progression in respect to the material universe - from basic inanimate 'stuff' to start with (Genesis 1:1), to life itself (1:20), and finally, to those creatures that express and reflect the image of God (1:26,27). We are indeed the place where all that is made finds a definition and bearing that is unique, and Eve was the pinnacle of that. Notice the way in which Genesis 2 is written principally to show this.

Those two points should really get us thinking.

Why?
Well, that is the mystery that Paul touches upon in Ephesians 5.
If we want to glimpse at the glory of what is coming in respect to the maturity of what Christ is forming in the living ones that are His bride, then we catch it, if but briefly, in that gorgeous moment when Adam sees Eve for the first time and, astonished, says "this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" (Genesis 2:23).

I lost my beloved to cancer some 14 years ago, but rarely does a day pass now when I'm not reminded in some fashion of her warmth and brilliance, and how amazing it was to spend the  many years together that we did - something I know will be renewed in an even better fashion come the resurrection.

My reason for writing this today, however, contains another vital aspect. It reminds me that there is so much that I have to learn - that what I began on that bad but good 'romantic' weekend so many years ago is actually part of a learning curve that will continue for eternity, because the love at the core of all this - the love known and shared by God - is something wider and deeper than words can express. Being made as we are provides a theatre in which so much of that can genuinely be expressed, just like marriage.

As a book I've been re-reading reminded me this week, so many of the troubles we face today, in the church, and in culture, is because we miss-read the real place and value of key elements of what life is - our roles to each other and how precious these are meant to be.

We cannot be a church marked by the mistakes of the past - we have to learn from these and move on, and that is clearly the case in respect to our understanding of the glory and the role of women. The very reason that such questions have been so prominent in our culture for the past century is, clearly, because we've had it wrong, and need to see Christianity itself return to the manner of life and practice on this subject evidenced in the Apostolic church.

A final thought.
Creation is clearly all about God bringing the higher into the lower, so apprehending and enjoying what's good isn't just a case of our loving objects, but becoming lovers of being - the inner wealth that allows us to truly fragrance our world. As Adam comprehended the physical grace of Eve for the first time, he understood that something much deeper had begun. That is indeed the way God desires life to speak to us.

Love indeed takes what would naturally be a tragedy and turns it into beauty.
That's why God opens eyes and hearts to Jesus Christ.