What a Difference a Year makes

In celebration of our 33rd wedding anniversary, I found the poem I wrote for my wife on our first year anniversary.  An amazing amount of life has been lived since then, and yet this poem captures that first increment of marriage:

What a difference a Year makes

What a difference a year makes;
I’ve hardly realized the changes that took place:
     Like thinking that I knew you,
     And now knowing I never will
     Like thinking that I knew me,
     And now knowing I never have.

What a difference a year makes
In the lives we were,
Were affecting
Now making
Always touching and not knowing it.

What a difference a year makes:
Two lives becoming one,
And begetting one new spirit
Another new soul.

What a difference a year makes:
     You’ve given more, withheld more
     You’ve hurt more, enjoyed more
     You’ve grown more, and you’ve more to grow
     It’s more of you in a year.

June 4/84, For Mercy on our first year anniversary, anticipating the birth of our first child, Kara.

The lines in the first stanza can just as easily be said for the spiritual journey.  No wonder marriage is likened to that mystery of Ephesians 5 – as a living parable of our relationship with God through Jesus.  Each word of this applies to my early revelation of Jesus as much as with Mercy.

… thinking that I knew you,
And now knowing I never will (fully)
… thinking that I knew me,
And now knowing I never have.

There is something seminal in those early crafted words that speak to what the ancients call “the double knowledge,” best put by that early saint:

“Lord, let me know myself; let me know you.”
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

Thus, to know God is to know yourself; and there is something in knowing yourself that gives insight to knowing God. 

May this year find you knowing yourself and your God a little more, with love, joy and wonderment.

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