The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
We have been having it for breakfast, dinner and tea. The newspapers have been full of it every day. It has been on television. It is one of the most talked of weddings for years. The happy, or unhappy, couple, subject to all this publicity are a Prince of Monaco and an American film star.
Newspaper reporters have been dogging the steps of these people who are making the news; some of them not to the Prince’s liking. Titled people have been jostling for places at the wedding reception: passing the time mean while in drinking and gambling and lazing about in luxurious idleness. Presently some of them will come home again and try to solve our economic problems.
Whether the young couple are really in love or not it would be hard to say. One report has it that they are having a honeymoon of a month on a yacht to get to know each other. I would have thought it was a bit late in the day to think about that. Of course, mind you, they will get to know each other. With nothing but their own company all the little weaknesses of human relationships will come out. It will be a test which the novelty of the situation may help them to meet. Already some of the dismal Johnnies are prophesying that the marriage will not last. Some of them have even gone so far as to detail the necessary steps to be taken if there is a divorce. It is not really fair. Everybody, whatever their station in life, has a right to the chance of happiness.
Many years ago now, a Prince and Princess were being married in Westminster Abbey. The Archbishop said to them: ‘We wish you happiness. But you will never find happiness by seeking for it. You will only find it by scattering it abroad.’
Maybe you heard the story of the farmer who was showing some of his friends around the farm. His wife accompanied the visitors too. When the farmer showed the friends his lovely new tractor and was rewarded with admiring remarks, the wife could not resist the temptation and she chimed in with, ‘And only for my money it wouldn’t be there.’ Then they moved off to admire the prize herd of cattle and after the expected admiration, the wife once more remarked, ‘And only for my money that wouldn’t be there.’ The husband not to be outdone in front of his visitors, turned on his wife and said, ‘And but for your money you wouldn’t be here either.’
Whether it is a Prince and a film star, or a carpenter and a typist, it is all the same. Underneath there are the same human impulses and desires, the same weaknesses and the same strength. And everybody has to learn to give and take. If more married couples took God home with them from the Altar and kept Him with them in their daily life there would be more happy homes.
On this question the Apostle Paul is not a very safe guide for he seems to have been not only a confirmed but a rather bitter bachelor.
I do like to think that once, at a wedding feast Paul’s Master was bidden as a guest and shared the fun and gave His blessing. He never refuses an invitation to any wedding.
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