When I was young, I would have arguments with my brothers. We’d wrestle some, like boys do, our tempers would flare, and later after we’d cooled off we’d silently agree to put it behind us. The quiet repair of the friendship created a strengthened bond. When you go through years of ups and downs with siblings like that, it builds a long-lasting relationship. The fact that us brothers have argued and patched things up only adds to our shared history. We know today that those arguments didn’t separate us, and so we trust each other even more. In a way, we’re better off having had some arguments than if we never had any.
I think it’s the same with friends and spouses. Having big, emotional fights isn’t really a good thing, but, try as we might, disagreements do flare up and emotions get heated. We say things we don’t mean. Things we regret and later try to take back. An argument has a way of pulling the honest truth out of us, for better or worse -- our real feelings and inner thoughts come spilling out. If the reconciliation afterwards is genuine and forgiveness is forthcoming, the disagreements can, like those fights I had with my brothers, become opportunities to strengthen the relationship.
There’s a mystery, here. Love, forgiveness, and reconciliation have the ability to not only restore us to our previous state, but to actually improve things from the way they were before the rift.
During the Easter Vigil, there’s a line in the Exsultet that is often puzzled over: "O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!" The “happy fault” is an acknowledgment of the mystery. It wasn’t a good development when Adam and Eve sinned and space was created between humanity and God. We cannot shrug off that rift. It was never in God’s plan that we would argue with him like that, rebelling to the point where we brought down death and pain and misery on ourselves. But the miracle is that, after the fall, he never gave up on us. Instead, God offers reconciliation and, through his love, even the evil we introduced into the relationship can be folded back into his plan for a greater good.
Off to the woods
How often have we ruined a relationship so badly that we were convinced it was all but dead? In my friendships, I’ve made assumptions, misread motives, heard only what I wanted to hear, been thoughtless, selfish, and rude. I’ve gotten into my own head and created fictional narratives about other people and ascribed all my worst instincts to them, which isn’t fair. Because of this, I have often let my friends down. I fear I’ve been a bad friend to a lot of people. Further, it seems to me that if others really knew what I was thinking all the time, they might never want to be around me. I cannot help but believe, if the truth were known about how fickle we all are, everyone would swear off society and go live alone in the woods. Rifts are so easy to create but so hard to heal.
Of course, my line of thinking is focusing on the negatives, the initial flaws in our ability to perfectly commit to a relationship. I looked just now at the “fault” part of the equation, but the Exultet of the Church at Easter isn’t a reminder of our flaws. It adds one little adjective that makes all the difference. The fault is “happy.” Why? Because along with our flaws, we humans are capable of astounding acts of forgiveness and mercy and love. When we imitate God and overcome our limitations, we actually connect with a part of ourselves that transcends the situation in which we find ourselves.
Everything sad will come untrue, Tolkien writes in The Lord of the Rings. Everything bad and regrettable in our past is all part of the journey. With a reconciliation, an apology, a confession, we can end up in a better condition than if the ill had never happened. I try to remember this when I’m anxious that I’ve irreparably damaged a relationship, or committed a sin I’m particularly ashamed about. Even if I have made myself into a ruin, God will build me back into an edifice more beautiful than the previous one, from the Garden he raises up a New Jerusalem. Love overcomes all failure.
Our weakness is not the permanent undoing of us but, rather, opportunity for grace. God’s relationship with us is not merely punitive but also redemptive. In fact, in his Passion, Our Lord takes inside of himself the very conditions of Adam’s fall, thus transforming sin into the means of salvation.
The true meaning of our creation was always the Incarnation, always a strong and permanent relationship between man and God that allows us to participate in the interior relationship of the Trinity, a relationship that is made everlasting and unbreakable by perfect love.
