Loving the Wrinkles

Something about reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales for 3 hours today reminded me of something I'd learned from Dr. Reynolds earlier this week.

I have always been troubled by the fact that people age. Sure, anybody can fall in love with someone who is young and beautiful. Anyone can say "till death do us part" to someone who is strong and tanned and dark-haired, and it's even easier if they're wearing a tux.

For girls, it's no problem fathoming how a guy could promise forever when she's glowing and thin and wearing white, when she's stylish and chic and vibrant. But it must be so scary hearing it and thinking, does he really mean that? Pretty soon I'll be gaining fifty pounds. Is he going to love the wrinkles and the grays and the cellulite?

And I wonder how they can still be as much in love with what is now mediocre as they were with what was beautiful. Why does love just get stronger, and why don't they leave for the young when an older woman has passed her prime?

But Dr. Reynolds illustrated this with food. He explained that when he was a kid, all he wanted was french fries and hamburgers. Anything else was gross. Of course french fries and hamburgers are good, but it isn't all there is. If he still ate nothing but McDonald's from the time he was 5 to the time he was 40, he wouldn't just be morbidly unhealthy. He'd be missing out on the filet mignon, the caviar, the pinot noirs and merlots and zinfandels of the world. He would recoil at anything gourmet and ask for the kid's menu when the Iron Chef was on duty.

That approach wouldn't just be immature. It would be ridiculous, because he would completely miss the adventure in the food realm, in which you find the subtleties of flavor and develop an appreciation for a well-made product.

He applied it to love. He said that the greatest adventure in life is not to satisfy carnal urges with cheap, chintzy, plastic imitations of love. It's not to revel in fashion and it's not to consider physical beauty to be limited to 18-24 year olds.

The greatest challenge, the adventure of a lifetime, is to learn to fathom the mystery of another's soul. It's to love that soul and learn to appreciate the complexities and nuances that cheap love tries to hide under makeup and spray-on tans. It's to develop such a taste for that soul that age is beautiful, that immature youth is not nearly as attractive as a character refined by wisdom and years.

If he's right, then there is such hope. That means that just as I've graduated from considering NSYNC to be the pinnacle of musical achievement to the point of finding Bach's fugues fascinating, I'll grow up relationally. My taste will mature and refine.

I'll be able to understand life, love, and other mysteries. Like why people make it to their 50th anniversaries. Like why wrinkles are endearing. Like why that 80-year-old couple at the restaurant still holds hands under the table.