Into This Holy Estate

Marriage can still make news--a celebrity wedding, a noisy divorce, a new law allowing same-sex marriage--but it's hardly the preferred option. Cohabitation is enough for many. And constancy? Staying? Do you hear about that much? We all move, fly, uproot, take vacations, tour. In fact, staying is strange! What might it feel like, or look like? A renewable resource? Sustainable energy, a school of resilience? Is there anything to this business of vows--this long history of enactment, consecration, and sacrament? What about the words we say when we do it? What about the terrain we set down roots into afterwards? Is there a parallel there--or something closer? This book is a story of a marriage lived out under the pronouncements of an ancient text (whose archaic language makes the occasional cameo appearance or comic turn) and under the aegis and blessing of a great river named after a saint. The story passes, mostly, in a garden, and annotates "the way love will flow through a marriage / on its way to its destination."