I WISH YOU WERE PLAY DOUGH – A POEM FOR MY LOVING DOE

Early this particularly cold morning in bed, I was testing out the Biblical wisdom that “Two are better than one, …if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?” (Ecc 4:9-11).  Hugging my wife as tightly as I could I felt something that was not about warmth and not about sex, but about something deeper and higher; something ineffable and ethereal. 

I muttered a few lines about play dough and thought, “Hmm, I could work that into a poem.”  A few seconds later my wife independently said “Hmm you could make that into a poem.” 

So, who am I to argue?  Here’s a poem for you, my “loving dough” (apologies to Proverbs 5:19).

I WISH YOU WERE PLAY DOUGH

I wish you were play dough.

Then I’d gently roll you flat,

and wrap myself up in you

like a velvety blanket.

I wish you were a triple-layer chocolate cake.

Then I’d carefully divide you

into a hundred little pieces,

and snack on you throughout the day.

I wish you were a deep cave high up on a mountain.

Then I’d climb right into you,

like a grizzly bear,

and sleep right through my harshest winters.

I wish you were a freshly popped-up slice of hot toast,

and I a huge blob of soft butter.

Then I’d slowly melt

into every part of you.

As I said, this is not simply about sex.  It’s about something spiritual and sacramental.

We are only ever lent to each other as temporary bookmarks as we await the denouement of God’s greater narrative.  Similarly, the best we can ever be for each other is an appetizer for the greater banquet of God Himself.

Augustine said “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”  I would add that our hearts and minds and bodies are restless as they itch and ache for this greater fulfilment.

Christian thinkers have argued for the existence of God based on this kind of desire.  Just as thirst proves the reality of water, the existence, within us, of a desire, which “nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature, can satisfy, suggests that there exists something outside of time, earth, and creatures which can satisfy this desire”(Kreeft).

C S Lewis backed up this idea.  He was accused, as a bachelor, of having a fascination with a fabricated deity, because he was really longing for the satisfaction of a sexual human relationship.  After marrying Joy Davidman he could riposte: After having ‘feasted on love…[which left no] cranny of heart or body…unsatisfied…[w]e both knew we wanted something besides one another –quite a different kind of something, a quite different kind of want.’

Jesus relativised marriage (and consequently romantic love) in a realistic and healthy reframing when he said: “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage.  (35)  But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage,  (36)  and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”

I love how Eugene Peterson translates these verses in his Message version of the Bible: “Those who are included in the resurrection of the dead will no longer be concerned with marriage nor, of course, with death. They will have better things to think about, if you can believe it. All ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God. “

This is such good news:

It means my wife and I don’t have to put pressure on each other to be more than we are: simple little cracked, leaking vessels that occasionally overflow with God’s sacramental love and ecstasy. 

We are freed from the botox-and-silicone-fueled, entertainment-industry-inspired three-ring circus that is called modern love; and spared all the pain, suffering and relational destruction it inevitably leads to, when all the cocktails and cannabis and condoms and cheap promises are used up. 

In glorious defiance, we can smile and laugh as we rapidly decompose (having passed the age of 50) like overripe fruit on a hot windowsill.  We can continue to get intoxicated (cf. Prov 5:19-20) with God’s good wine, which actually seems to get better, as the vessels get older and accumulate chips and cracks. 

It also means all is not lost for the single: the ones who never got married, despite the most ardent desire, because life becomes so twisted and unfair as people flout God’s covenant rules and the “relationship-market-economy” goes out of whack; and the ones who got divorced, no matter how great the hope and how good the intentions, equally because of this messed up relational ecosystem we inhabit.  We all share the blame along with the pain.

I do feel such pain in my heart for you and I know God does too.  But all is not lost, because the greater thing remains intact for you.  This is said very carefully and non-glibly, and again, with pain in my heart for you.