Change. Positively.

I saw a little affirmation note on my sister's treadmill today. It said: I am in the process of positive change. It satyed with me as I plodded along on the endless rubber belt. Positive change. Why wasn't that sitting right with me?

Oh, yeah, I know. I don't like change. It's a necessary evil, sure. But it can be scary, painful even. And as I get older, change takes on new meaning. It used to be something powerfully exciting. You change into a teenager, into an adult. You change your living situation, the guy you're dating, the paint in your bedroom. And then you get older and change starts to mean something else. You have to change your diet because you have high cholesterol. You have to change jobs because you got downsized. Your body changes in all kinds of ways that aren't pleasant (holy crap - grey hair!).

Change can be hard. Change can be exhausting.

Positive change.

These last weeks, my sister-in-law has been working on a butterfly project with her kids. The little caterpillars crawled their way into the food jar, made their chrysallises, waited, grew... and now there are five butterflies where there were once just squirmy things.

Positive change.

Without what I have suffered, I would not have learned compassion. Without the change from girl into woman, I would be no help to the young women I serve. Without change from what I used to know to what I understand now, I would not be the best version of myself, I would not be able to rise to holiness, I would not be able to bust out of my own way.

So yes, change is hard. And yes, I have the power - and the responsibility - to make positive change. And yes, it is a process. But that process brings us through to the other side - to the new life, to Easter, to hope.

Today I am in the process of making a positive change. And that is all that is required of me.

Alleluia is Our Song

Uncharacteristically, I unplugged this weekend, for the most part. But I sang my alleluias, loud and strong, welcoming them back into our life.

Today I am thinking towards next weekend, actually, more than last. The weekend JP II becomes a "blessed" - the weekend that the blessed rosaries I have from Czestochowa become that much more unique - the weekend the marriage blessing framed on my wall takes on new meaning.

Sometimes history just passes us by. But not this time. No way.

John Paul II helped change the world. Sure, he has his critics. Sure, not every choice of words or appointments or decisions was perfect. And yes, sometimes we all can feel that his words just couldn't find footing in the real praxis of our times. But his legacy lives on. And the hope and truth are what will continue to shine long past the almosts and maybes that earmark the opinions of those with other agendas.

Hope and truth are so vital, and hard to find, it seems, these days. So I'll take this moment in history and say thank you John Paul II, for the ways you loved, your call to young people (of which I was one), your encouragement to lay people, your honor of the feminine, even in theory and theology, because it means someone else can now put it into practice.

I think I'll have a lot more to say as the week goes on. But for now, this Easter Monday, I am reminded of John Paul II's beautiful words: We are Easter people, and Alleluia is our song.

Thank you for the reminder, and the direction. We live in the suffering of every day, the struggle to be better, the battle to survive well, the temptations, the loss, the war. But we are people of the forever -the Resurrection that shook time, and calls us out of the mire into the glory of hope. And our soundtrack, as authentic Christians, is the song of the angels- the Alleluia! the melody of Heaven and the harmony of Creation. Thank you, JP II for the reminder and the call to be Easter people every day, to sing with the angels the Alleluia that is our inheritance, our spiritual feast, and our joy.

Church: Lift Up Your Priests

Many of my fellow Catholic bloggers, clearly reflecting on the events of the Last Supper on this Holy Thursday, have taken the opportunity to reflect on the priesthood. Not one to be left out, I also want to take this blogpost, whether anyone reads it or not, to honor the men who are our spiritual fathers.

Since I have been employed by the Church, I have come to see priests in a new light. Most of the men I know are overworked and underappreciated. They are wakened for the sick and dying, their lives are not their own. They often are on call for days at a time, offering the sacrifice of the Mass several times a day. But these last generations have also been tempest tossed by the changes in the Church and society. Many have forgotten who they are - many never really knew. The fraternity of priests we lay people imagine, hardly exists. Our priests often live alone or with an aging, crabby pastor. Their "brothers" are too busy with their own demands of parish and diocese to reach out to one another. They are worried about things like balancing budgets and hiring (and these days, laying off) staff. They are concerned with so many worldly things: rent and leaky plumbing, and spiritual things: confirming hundreds of teens, serving the latest bridezilla.

With minimal fraternity, many of our priests also have little support from higher up. The shepherds, too, become so concerned with appearances or practical demands that they fail to notice when the priests under their watch haven't gone on retreat in four years, haven't had a vacation in two, haven't had a meal with their fellow priests in God knows how long. Priests become isolated, frustrated, and while not seeking reward, are left utterly discouraged and disillusioned. Many have not received the sacrament of Reconcilliation in years. Many are holding on by a thread to a prayer life.

I think in some ways our Church has let them down. The demands are superhuman, and the support is negligible.

We, the Church, have a responsibility, I believe, to change this. It is our job to encourage our pastors, to thank our priests. It is for us to provide community, since they are not members of their own community, but they number among the baptized. We can invite them to dinner, send thank you notes, bake cookies, pray for them. And even when we meet resistence (sorry - I'm "too busy") we need to perservere - to remind our priests gently that Jesus came for us all, and so that we may all be one in Him.

Women, I believe we have a special call. These priests, our brothers, don't live in an environment with the feminine genius. They make decisions and daily choices with a very masculine ethos. Our loving example should be at their service, as a reminder that the heart of the Church is Marian - as an encouragement to them to remain open, receptive. If we follow Mary's footsteps as icons of the Church, then it is our job to allow our priests to share their gift of self with us, and to lay down their lives for us... but like our husbands and brothers, they need to be invited in, to be gently shown the way when they are lost. Our priests need sisters - they need the feminine in their lives, they need not to experience the groaning of original solitude, but to see the women they serve as a path to God. We have a responsiblity here, and a gift.

Church, I challenge us to use our gifts to love our priests. To remember they are also on the journey to Christ and with Christ. To offer our prayers and gifts and love at their service, to collaborate in self-giving, to give and receive in unity. Our priests are our fathers, and like our own dads, need to be encouraged in their leadership and their love. Our priests open the door to Heaven for us, as they stand as both bridegroom and bride. They deserve to be celebrated not for all they do - but for who they are: brothers, fathers, teachers, family, sons of the King of Kings.

Passion and Grace

As we enter Passiontide, I want to reflect on the rib again. I had some thoughts about Adam's rib and the creation of woman in the Genesis story, but I want to take it further, and explain how and why this is a good time to reflect on it.

It is unique to the story that woman is birthed from the side of the man, and not in any other more mythologically or biologically logical manner. This oddity has a greater significance when we consider the body of Jesus in the crucifixion: a consideration worthy of this holy week.

While Roman custom usually entailed breaking the bones of crucifixion victims to speed and insure their death, Jesus' bones were left untouched, in fulfilment of the Isaiah passage. But there was still a further attack on his person after he was crucified. The spear was thrust in his side, and brought forth blood and water. Traditional reflections on this event suggest that the spear must have pierced his heart for those fluids to flow.

What seems significant here is that this is the very fulfilment of the creation of woman we read in Genesis. While Adam's hard rib was, in a biological sense, the origin of woman, the piercing of Christ's side is the origin of the Church. In the blood and water flowing from his heart, the Church is born. What does this mean for us? In a particular way, the heart of Christ is the origin of Church.

And as we reflect on this birth, we begin to understand the weighty issue of the body. Through the body life comes and new life comes. Through these bodies something new and wonderful arises. But there is a looming difference between the creation of woman and the birth of Church. In Adam's case, God fulfils the desire of Adam's heart by taking a rib while he sleeps. But in the passion, there is no rest until the final rest. There is no taking, but complete gift. The Church, the Bride, is born of total self-gift, not of some hard appendage, but rather, a gift so total it flows from Jesus' side. This pouring forth of life is the difference between divine intervention in fulfilment of our desire, and the intervention of the divine in the very history of humankind towards what we know we desire but cannot name.

Beware of thinking of this gift of life in purely masculine terms, however. While this total sacrifice of self is beautifully masculine in its chivalry, its totality, and even its brutality, there are disctinctly feminine aspects which invite women to fully enter the journey. The heart is feminine in its round softness, and I would argue feminine in the kind of strength it has and the way in which it sustains life. And that spear, the masculinen instrument thrust into the side of Jesus, pierces with surity in a deep and lasting change. Archbishop Sheen saw the blood and water as symbolicly masculine, but the pierced and open side remains as the clearly feminine conduit through which the Church is birthed.

Here is our salvation. Here is the full beauty of the passion. The moment of salvation comes from the masculinity and femininity of Christ, at once unified and in perfect cohesion. Here is the persistent elevation of the human body, dignified at the Incarnation, and displayed in its most helpless frailty and most generous capacity.

This Holy Week is a perfect opportunity for us all, women and men alike, to find that Heart that birthed our hearts, and in receptive and life-giving openness, to return the gift with our own gift of self: to let the gift flow through us and outside of us in that wonderful Marian grace of life-giving love.

To Go or Not to Go

A woman I know, who is rather amazing... who in fact, lit the first fire of academic inquiry in theology for me, is herself a blogger. She collects quips and media, signs and stories that shed a little levity into what could be a life mired down in the legal and technical ins and outs of Catholic theology. You can find her blog here at Ironic Catholic.

So why am I sending you to another blogger's site? Well, because there is so much to the way she lives the feminine genius. She is a theology professor - in fact, was mine, who has a husband in academics and a whole bunch of beautiful little kids. She spends charitable hours with the Catholic Worker movement, helping as she can, and has involved her whole family in this work. She and her husband are in the process of trying to adopt a special needs child from overseas. (She just had a baby last year.)

Now, I don't claim to know her well, but you don't have to know someone well to be touched by them. While this woman shares a little quirky joy with her readership, she also clearly loves and cherishes the Catholic culture. She is spreading the culture in every blogpost, and in her book on the saints. In her professional life, she creates an open environment for academic inquiry, but more than that - theology is deeply personal. It is not "religion," an objective understanding of a variety of faiths. It is a journey through belief and the ways in which those beliefs affect the world. And she is not just a preacher of faith, but her generosiry of spirit shows in her embrace of children, and her charitable life.

And there is more. Many of you in Catholic World know that the Vatican is calling its first forum of bloggers from around the world to meet on May 2nd to explore this medium and the people in it. And a select few have been invited to attend. One of these few is IC, the woman I have described. But she can't go. It's expensive, and she has family and professional committments... and their finances are wrapped up in the adoption process as well.

For any of you who know me, this is the ultimate heartbreak. I adore travel, and writing, and... Rome?!

But she has graciously shared the story, and come to the conclusion that it is not right at this time. And my heart is sad for her. But this is her genius. Her gift of self is in who she is, not where she goes or who she can rub elbows with. She has made choices that are truly generous, and has to put her own opportunities aside for a time.

We all are called to this. To die to ourselves and to love one another. This is not to say that if she went to Rome there wouldn't be just as much good being done! But sometimes we have to choose between two good things - and I think if there is some angst in the choice, that very suffering can be used for the greater good.

I can't say what I would have done in her place. I'm not sure I would be as responsible and faithful. But that may just be the very reason she had the opportunity. There are truly great women in the Church today - you only need a visit next door or the click of a mouse to find them.

Young Church - We Love You

I was reading a blog by "not a minx" on Young Catholics and she made a very stirring argument that the Church does not care about young people. My heart hurts when I hear this, because I don't want it to be true - and I don't believe it essentially is.

What she has completely right is that most young adult groups in Catholic dioceses and parishes seem to be comprised of people who wish they were young adults, and are desperately trying to pretend to be. They often attract folks who have a hard time finding and making social connections elsewhere, have come back to their faith after years of unknowing, or are looking for love. While these groups often do good things for these needs, service, social space, etc., they are not really attractive to those folks in their twenties and early thirties who don't WANT to leave the Church - who LONG for community - who know there is MORE.

And I agree Church is absolutely not just for married people over 35 with three kids and a dog.

I do have to stop here and make one argument in a big way. Pope John Paul II was very aware of young people's needs. And by that I do NOT mean youth ministry as it exists in the US and some other places - not just tending to our pre-adult children.

Back in 1986, John Paul II began World Youth Day - an international celebration of the Faith for young adults. Despite the tendency of many in the US to see this as an event for high schoolers, it is not primarily for teens. The age for registration at WYD has always been 16-35, and it is squarely directed at the 20 something crowd.

So what, you say? Every three years the Church remembers her 20somethings.

Well, no. Every three years (and every Spring in Rome) the Church says to the world and to all you 20 somethings: Our young people are special! They are Church! They are beautiful and gifted, provide new ways to think and see, and offer the passion and yearning so many of us have forgotten. They are worth all this time and fuss and they need to know (as we all do) that they are not alone!

So while reminding us all that the Church as an institution does some remarkable things we may take for granted, I will also say that the Church as a local institution is often bogged down by prioritizing families with children over anyone else, young, old, and otherwise. Religious Ed seems to run many parishes, and Catholic schools are the focus of many diocesan efforts, sometimes with youth ministry thrown in. Parish boards and staffs are run by middle aged parents and older folks who have been around since the ice age. So, yes, on a local level - it DOES look like the Church doesn't care about its young people.

And while I will keep the rest short, since this seems to be one of the longest posts I've written (and good for you for hanging in there) in a while, I will say that in some places real young adult ministry does exist. I know this, because I am a young adult minister. Once a month anywhere from 8 to 28 people gather in our chapel for Eucharistic Adoration followed by pub night. And these are normal, well-adjusted folks, male and female, married and single. Their ages fall most solidly in the 22-28 range. And once a month we host small faith groups, one for men and one for women. They are small, but it's good.

So yes, these groups are not some young-people-in-the-Church Brigadoon. They exist.

But here is really why ours does exist. One day a young adult woman who knows me, and knows my gifts for ministry and mentoring told me she had a need. She could see that she and a group of her faithful Catholic friends from college felt like they were alone- they needed concrete community, encouragement, and a place to join together in faith. But she also knew that young adults are mobile, and often distracted, and just often aren't connected enough to make sure things get up and running. So she came to me - and I prayed about it, talked to the pastor, and now we have a women's group, a men's group, and a great pray-and-play coed group.

What's my point? My point is that if you're in your twenties and you know you want more, you have experienced real faith life and the joy of a faith community in college, you desire support and direction, and you feel like your concerns and needs aren't being met - DO SOMETHING about it. I want to encourage every one of you not to despair that "THE CHURCH" doesn't care about young people - YOU are the Church. Do YOU care about young people? You do? Then jump in. Do what you can. Talk to your pastor -find someone like minded and get them to tell two friends. And you tell two friends. And ask some talented, faithful slightly older than you adult(s) in your parish, or the neighboring parish, to help facilitate this. Ask someone stable to be a resource, while you text or call or facebook your peers.

Don't give up hope. Because I think the "cure" to serving our young adults best is through our young adults. You know who is out there. So invite, welcome and evangelize your peers. This is what adults have to do - at some level you just have to make things happen and stop waiting for someone's mom to do it for you.

But in case you feel overwhelmed, and if no one else is saying it to you, allow me to say it again. The Church loves our young adults. And we need you: your passion, your gifts and your faithfulness, because you are vitally, irreversably yourselves, the Church.

Biker Gangs and Mother Mary

I was watching one of those edgy-California-biker-gang meets modern family series on cable. It's amazing where you find insights into womanhood...and where you see Mary.

The matriarch of the lead biker gang is a hardened, wiry woman with a gift for keeping her mouth shut and her eyes wide open. At one point in the series is she is brutally attacked. The psychological and emotional stress wears on her, until she loses a sense of her identity.

She begins to open her heart to a God she never believed in, in small but significant ways. On a smoke break, she has a casual converation with a priest who tells her that the point of life and the way to survive the feeling of self-loathing that is borne from trauma, is to live a life of service to others.

Finally, in one striking scene, she is in a car with her son's girlfriend. It's an old car with a plastic Blessed Mother taped to the dashboard. The woman begins to reflect on God, Catholicism, and identity. And pulling the small plastic figure off the dash, she says: I know my identity. I am supposed to be a Fierce Mother.

Now, maybe you're thinking - what does this Biker Mom have to do with motherhood, with Mary? But I was thinking : yes! yes! You understand her! You understand who Mary is and what she did... she said yes under impossible odds and opened her heart to others. She lived her whole being in yes to others, in service, pure gift. And Fierce she is. The Snake-slayer, the bearer of Salvation. The woman whose heart was pierced with swords is the perfect model for this woman whose heart had been brutalized... And though the biker mom certainly is no Mary, still, her own sense of identity and the restoration in a sense, of her womanhood, comes from a small yet driving connection to the Fierce Mother of God.

In this metaphor we can see ourselves. Women who are far off track, or perhaps just in pain... women who are burdened with our own sins or wearing those of others... women whose hearts are heavily protected - maybe not with leather and guns - but with the emotional equivalent. And we, too, can find something right in Mary that we desire to be - a deeper identity that goes beyong leather or lace or veils or boots. This is the essence of womanhood, and it is motherhood - that gift particular to women to know, to heal, to bear and to nuture the other.

Beyond our own toughness and scars, we find a Woman who bears them too. But filled with the grace of the Spirit, she points us back beyond those things to who we truly are and can be. And her fierce motherhood is not only our model, but our protection in time of stress and trouble, and astonishingly, our hope.

Listening. Keeping. Doing.

Epictetus said: we have two ears and one mouth so that we listen twice as much as we speak.

Listening...really hearing the Word of God has a significance, I think, in the whole scheme of worship. Our participation in the Mass is relient upon hearing. And of course i mean hearing in the sense of absorbong, and even understanding. In this way, we believers can imitate Mary who "kept all these things in her heart" . This keeping is part of the action of receiving the gift. We receive, and keep. We protect and the seed grows.

Ratzinger talks about This as the feminine dimension... A motherhood, as it were, in which we elect to participate, as the seed of the Word is planted in our hearts, and we allow it to grow. He says: this motherhood which brings Christ to birth again and again rests upon the hearing, keeping and doing of Jesus' word.

This is enormously empowering stuff! As women we become fully potent in the sense of keeping the Word alive but also in this re-birthing of Christ in the world. No longer is this birth a one time only event or a one woman only effort. No longer do we look at the icon of woman and mutter to ourselves, yeah, sure, but Mary was sinless...what hope do I have? In the very redemption of the flesh, our own spiritual motherhood takes hold, if we choose, and empowers us, women and men, to spread the Gospel.

In this way, we participate in the priesthood of baptism, bringing the truth to all we enciunter. In this way womanhood has a chance at its truest form: a motherhood which births Christ.

This is good news for the Church, for we who are Church have a way to give flesh to our faith. We listen, keep, and do. As women and as men, this bridal respinse is most becoming, because our actions are not just some legalistic mantra or planned construction.rather, our actions are an organic response to the word within us...the Word kept in our hearts. This is what the feminine dimension really is, and why, at our hearts, all women can claim the vocation of motherhood...because without the Mother there would have been no birth, and only with our constant yes does the Christ contiue to live on in our hearts and in our wirld.

Cracking A Few Eggs

"I'll have the garden omelette with egg whites, and dry rye toast. And some strawberry jam, if you have it."

Fifteen minutes later, the waitress returned with a very pretty plate of hash browns, toast halves, and a very yellow looking omelette. I looked at her apologetically. "Um - are these egg whites?" I thought maybe they were those egg beaters, which don't contain yolks but can be a little yellowy. She told me yes they were. "Oh, cause - they look too yellow to be egg whites." I was giving her the opportunity to figure it out, or at least offer to check with the kitchen. And then came the confused look on her face, and - was it a conscious thought? The maybe if I lie to the customer, she'll stop interrogating me thought? "Well" she said "sometimes they just mix them together." And then she walked away.

Now remember, I'm from Jersey. Last time I was at this chain restaurant I was in Minnesota, and those folks are just plain nice. But I just sat there with my mouth open - probably like Michael in Mary Poppins when he is reminded that "we are not a codfish." Mix them together? The egg whites and egg yolks? Like, the way they do in a regular omelette? She just totally lied to me.

Not a minute later, another waitress, who was assauting the industrial carpet nearby with a sweeper, stopped what she was doing to ask if everythig was ok. And I asked her if the omelette was egg whites. "Yeah- no way." She replied, called over the manager, and within six minutes I had a white-as-snow healthy EW omelette steaming on the plate in front of me.

With all the theological inquiry I usually pen, what does my breakfast fiasco have to do with anything?

The interesting part - maybe the most interesting part - was that the waitress in error came back to apologize. But when I explained that the mix up was no big deal, I was just not happy that she wasn't up front about the egg yolks, she looked really, really confused. I think she had been told to apologize and did, and really thought it was the yolks that had upset me.

But it wasn't. It was the feeling that she didn't want to help make it right. It was the idea that she had not heard me, the sense I had that I was asking too much of her. What upset me most was feeling like she had - perhaps without premeditation- just lied to me rather than find out the truth. Were they egg yolks? Was it an egg beaters batter that just looked yellow? Should she be a tiny bit concerned that I ordered whites for a health or allergy reason?

But the truth wasn't important enough. The reason wasn't important enough. And really, that's what got me.

Still, I feel compelled to put myself in her shoes - not in her job, but in my interactions. How can I turn that kind of thinking around where it exists in my own life? Are there people asking for egg white omelettes and I just imagine them as difficult? Do I really take the time to see the layers of need in the person, or do I base my response to others on the immediate issue? These are important questions to answer, because part of giving of myself and receiving the other is being open to see the wounds and hurts, the journey and heart of others. It means slowing my own busy-ness down in order to really hear what others have to say, and to really give my whole self: my full attention, my best version.

And I don't just do it with other people, but with God. Sometimes I'm busy doing all the right things, like the waitress. God what would you like today? An open heart and contrite spirit? Sure thing. Need a refill on the caffeine God? No? You gave it up for Lent? Ok, I'll be back with petitions and offerings in a few. Here you are- heart and spirit with a side of worry. Oh - open heart? Well, that battered, closed heart looks ok to me. Well, let me get my manager...

Thanks be to God I get to try again. I can apologize and really listen and try to understand where I need to change. I can come back later and slow down and be present, really present. And I will be forgiven every time I get the order wrong. Lent is this perfect time to really listen, and to ask for the grace not just to serve, but to be a good and faithful servant.

I hope that waitress had a good day, and an easy load. She was very friendly for the rest of the time she waited our table, brought the check without us even asking, didn't interrupt with bothersome questions about wanting more coffee or taking home leftovers, and she even put complimentary butter on my dry rye toast.

Responding to Sarah Silverman

When it first began, I was really excited about The View on tv, because it was the first time I had seen anything like it. Finally, here were women talking about any number of issues - from politics to social justice- in a frank way, with a clearly female perspective. But in my opinion the show has gone downhill from there, and I hardly watch anymore because I just can't stand the fact that the loudest women get the most air time, and the agenda is markedly one-sided.

So I only tuned in for a few minutes Wednesday to see Sarah Silverman being interviewed. If you don't know Sarah, she's got an acidic wit and often anti-moral humor. But she's my age. And I have to admit to having a bit of fascination with celebs that are "my age" - as though their choices should somehow inform mine.

I'm very grateful I can think for myself.

When Barbara Walters asked Sarah if she wanted to get married one day, she defiantly replied no because "no one will ever own me." The force behind her words was odd, and it seemed to throw the five married women on the couch for a loop as to how to respond. Because her words didn't sound confident, they sounded bitter. There must be deep wounds there.

So it made me think about it. Can anyone own someone else? Do we ever really own people? Mustn't we be mistaking people for things if we think we "own" them? In that case, I agree with Sarah. I don't own anybody. No one will ever own me.

But then there's this deeper sense to the word, which maybe makes some sense in marriage... I'm not sure. In Song of Songs we hear the phrase "I am my Beloved's, and He is mine." This is certainly some kind of ownership, is it not? But I don't think this is what Sarah meant. I may be attributing a sensibility to her that is unwarranted, but I think she meant ownership is something that goes one way: like how I own my house and my car. And I suppose one could even say: I own my cat or dog or house plant, even though those things are alive. So how can I say I belong to someone else, and he to me, and not threaten his personhood, his freedom and autonomy?

This comes down, I think, to the idea of reciprocity. In the reciprocity of love we give ourselves to another, and that other gives themself to us. When we grasp, or take, that is not this "belonging" but rather a "using" of the other. This lust, this using of another, is the opposite of love - and we need to rage against that. But in love, I give. I own myself, and I have the right to give myself, and all of myself to one other in marriage, to many others in life. If love truly models the self-giving love of the Trinty, then I must give my all in order to receive another's all. This exchange must occur to bring forth the dynamic fruit of love. In this total self-gift, yes, I have nothing left of myself... and yet, in receiving love, I have everything once again to give. as the beloved.

And so I wear my wedding ring with gratitude, because it says not that someone "owns" me, like a dog or a hat or a handbag, but that I "belong" to another, because I have given myself fully to him. And the joy of that total giving of self is what opens up a tiny little glimpse into Eternity.

So I agree with you, Sarah Silverman. I don't want to be owned by anybody. That's precisely why I embrace marriage. Because only in the exchange of love am I re-filled, fulfilled, and free.