Are you married?  Over the weekend, my wife and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary.  When we reflect on the years behind us, we are amazed:  who would have thought that out of an event held on an otherwise ordinary Saturday in Dallas, Texas, so many years ago, we have traveled, metaphorically speaking, so widely, trekking together through mile after mile of adventures as one.
     In a world that has reduced much of communication to digital expression and, as I see it, in so doing has undermined some of the humanness of the global community, marriage still stands as one way that people can connect with each other on a deeply personal basis.  It affords people a way to express their humanness in actual physical exchange. While barriers and hesitations of course exist in every marriage, the intimately personal shape of marriage allows those who participate in it to explore and deal with these things in a way that respects who we, human beings, most fully are.  It recognizes and affirms our inherently human capacities.  Marriage lets us see that whatever else we may say about the human species, we see that the human's deepest point of meaning is his or her ability to love.  We are made to love.  Be it love in marriage, friendship, or any other relationship, we mark ourselves by our capacity to love.
    And why not?  As the Italian writer Dante noted, in his Divine Comedy, when he reached the end of his journey through Paradise, it is love--God's love--in which all things form and come together.
     So it is:  we do not love unless we are loved first.