Manna Kept

I recently completed reading The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis. I will post my review of this book at some point in the near future. However, I wanted to share with you a lesson that Mr. Lewis imparted to me some 80 years after he put the words to paper. The topic is about the development and the evolution of the relationship between a man and wife. More specifically about what mature and healthy love should look like and what it should not look like.

"Do you not know how it is with love? First comes delight; then pain, then fruit. And then there is joy of the fruit, but that is different again from the first delight. And mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair. You must not try to keep the rapture; they have done their work. Manna kept, is worms."

In an earlier season when I played the role of husband and lover, I realize that I tried to cling so desperately to that first manic, irrepressible, sapid, mind-befogging infatuation, that spirit-drunk addiction of new love, that I never gave that more mature love an opportunity to bud and then flower into its fullest fruition. Instead, in my rush toward ecstasy, I plucked that new growth off the vine thus thwarting the possibilities of that future garden.