Promises

Pacta sunt servanda: "agreements must be kept."
Latin complication. Monogamy or marriage, 
businesses or baby dedications,
enthusiastic vows to follow through.
We promise, thinking that we're done.
Intentions may survive unknown realities ahead. 
But not always. Husband promises to love 
wife forever, but she's a wife he's only met, 
unfinished. How can he know if he will love the woman she becomes? She, in return, pledging heart, body, future, to someone she has taken on faith, assuming they'll grow closer, not apart? And yet, it happens every day.
Clausula rebus sic stantibus, escape clause for nations
breaking treaties. Change of circumstance neither
party could anticipate. Release, let go, neither
totally at fault, a civil end that says "We tried, and failed,
perhaps it's best." Mother eagles push their babies 
from the nest, so mother humans do.
Husbands leave. Wives too. Partners who could not
have guessed the day would come to close the door,
but there it goes, gently as one slinks away,
or slammed shut with more honest anger,
the result is much the same. So promise little,
deliver much, never forget it doesn't just
depend on you, mea culpa, mea maximus culpa.
Endings, too, may be the opus Dei.
Work of God.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012

Thinking on many things, including recent conversations with recently divorced friends, I was struck with the idea of contracts and treaties, surprised to learn that under new circumstances, there is legal provision for an end. People are sometimes so hard on themselves, failing to maintain the unrealistic expectations of others. God works in all these things, for his own purposes. Which glorifies God more: gritting-your-teeth adherence to unhappy alliances for the sake of saving face and Doing the Right Thing and keeping up appearances out of pride.... or....humbly saying "I gave it my best shot, and fell short, and now I need to move on to the next phase of my life" ? My answer has changed over the last several years. There is always pain involved, but while I used to be appallingly judgmental, black-and-white/wrong and right, this way or the highway, age has mellowed me. Age, and love, and wisdom. We need to be more gentle with ourselves, and with others. I know I do, anyway.