THE PAINT IS WET... TOUCH IT TO BE SURE

Pic.: Jhuma Mukerjee

The first time I heard about the concept of invisible third-partner in marriage was when my wife and I had attended our week-end ‘Marriage Encounters’ programme at the Retreat House, Bandra. A few months before our wedding, as was mandatory for every Roman Catholic to go through the ‘Marriage-Preparation’ course, my wife and I, too, had gone through one. Well, though it helped, it took a great many of hard-knocks in the later years to really be ‘prepared’ for this fine ‘encounter’ – this blessed sacrament - called ‘Matrimony’...

And, because every married couple goes through those hard-knocks in married life, and because it leads to a great deal of stress and confusion, the Church has been encouraging the married catholic-couples to go through a retreat called ‘Marriage Encounters’... Yes, we attended it, one week-end, when our son was just a couple of years old. We left him with our parents, and went to attend this retreat... To our pleasant surprise, there were plenty of couples, from just-married to just-to-die... there were even a few nuns and priests, who were, obviously, married to Christ, or call it God!

So, it was during this retreat – ‘The Marriage Encounters' – that I first heard about the Christian faith, that, in every marriage between a man and a woman, there is an invisible third partner. For us, the Christians, it was Jesus Christ... It was Krishna, Mahavir or Mohammed for non-Christians...

Now, though it did make a lot of sense to me then – when I was in my young-thirties – it took a lot many roller-coaster years to make that message sink in well...

It is yet to sink in, fully... Honestly!

Yesterday, in my Blog Post, I had concluded, that, when we become aware of the presence of this invisible third-partner - not only in a marriage relationship, but in any relationship - it becomes possible for us to feel the presence of our visible partner, though he or she is not around us... to feel the love, security and warmth of the person even though he or she is personally not present around us... I called it ‘Presence’... the golden moment in our relationship...

But, after reading my Post, someone wrote, “How are we supposed to know that there is this invisible third-partner, who blesses and sanctifies each relationship?”

I had no logical answer to offer my reader...

I told him how I, too, had asked the same question to the Leader of our ‘Marriage Encounter’ retreat when I was a young-and-strong man... I had thought, I was the sole captain of my ship... that, I could sail through any rough sea on my own... But, alas! I couldn’t do it on my own... I needed the ‘hand’, the ‘grace’... yes, of the invisible third- partner... I added, that, Marriage or any relationship... I did find the need of that ‘hand’... that ‘grace’!

The question was most sincere, as was its answer, too... So, we never argued on it...

And, just this morning, a FB friend of mine had shared this quote:

“Tell people there is an invisible man

in the sky who created the Universe..

and the vast majority will believe you.

Tell them the paint is wet

and they have to touch it to be sure.”

-         George Carlin

I immediately went into a silence... and, then, wrote this...

GERALD D’CUNHA