The Art of Finding a Husband

(Chinese Lantern Festival Missouri Botanical Garden, 2012- story depicted in the photo is below)

On the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, China celebrates the Qixi festival which surrounds a folk story of two lovers separated in the sky by the Milky Way. A poor cowherd and a beautiful girl from Heaven (some stories call her a fairy, some a daughter of the Emperor or Goddess) fall in love and marry. They live happily together for years and have two children, but one day the Goddess of heaven discovers their love and is furious. The lovers are forced to separate in the sky on two stars, the wife on one side, the husband and children on the other, with the Milky Way in between them. Every year at the same time the magpies fly to make a bridge between the two lovers so that they can meet at last.

Considering the plight of this story's "star crossed lovers" (literally in this case), I can't decide if it is more frustrating to find your love and then be so drastically thwarted from connecting more than once a year or to never find him at all. Every culture has stories that convey the delights and throbbing pain of lovers in almost any possible circumstance: losing one another in death, betrayal, misunderstanding; finding one another through happenstance, with the help of magic cattle (as in the Qixi story), during a quest (most fairy tales), or because a servant asked God to show him a woman who would offer to water his camels (Isaac & Rebecca's story in the Bible).

Today, we are connected to the rest of humanity around the world in ways that the people in these ancient stories would never have dreamed. What the cowherd and his wife wouldn't give for Skype, right? We can search a myriad of online dating sites categorized by religion, hobbies, socioeconomic background, favorite color, or frequency of sock washing. Even playing online games have resulted in at least two friends of mine finding husbands! Besides having the pick of people in the towns we grow up in, we have colleges around the country, or study abroad programs if this side of the pond doesn't prove to be fertile enough ground. There are hobby groups, meet-up groups, events in towns and cities to attend and ease of travelling long distances. A person could meet their prospective partner in the line at the airport, or in the library, or sitting next to you in the doctor's office. He/she could BE your doctor!

And yet, despite all of the opportunity, millions of single people around the world bemoan the lack of available matches or the difficulty of finding that special someone. As a Christian, childfree, artist, musician, single woman who has never dated, (and loves long walks on the beach), but has moved all over the country meeting thousands of people, I still feel this same disparity. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner's woes of "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink" could apply metaphorically to the singles situation. Just because we are surrounded by fellow single people longing for spouses doesn't mean we can make that connection happen when it will not happen.

I have been advised to "wait patiently and not pursue" and when that didn't work was told "to get out in the world more often, join groups, be confident, be open." When that didn't work, I tried not thinking about a husband entirely and just enjoyed my life, doing my own thing. That worked in the sense that enjoying one's own life is always productive, but still no husband slipped into my life. I was advised to "work on myself and my relationship with God" not for my own peace and closeness to God, but almost in a sense that I could then earn a husband as if a husband were a reward for good behavior. That idea is pervasive, and I always thought, a bunch of hogwash. I saw plenty of married folks who could have used a lot more "refining in the fire" before getting married. I mean, in comparison to them, by now I should be worthy of the Pope. Not the creepy looking Pope who recently resigned, but maybe a kind one like Pope John Paul II, a few decades younger, and not as dead.

As you can see, this waiting season has deeply refined my humility. I'm so ready for a husband.

All kidding aside, it seems at times that our own misinterpretations of what it takes to find that long awaited spouse are the very things that create the gap (or, the Milky Way) between us and our lovers. Sadly, judging by love stories of the people around me, finding a spouse is not only waiting patiently or only getting out there, but it is those things... and pursuing, and flirting, and being discreet, and brazen, and attending events, and focusing on one's own life, and working on one's rough edges, and sitting idly by, and being an emotional mess, and going on dates, and not dating around, and walking in the park, and playing games on the computer, and attending college, and going to the grocery store, and meeting the childhood boy next door... Basically, there IS NO FORMULA! In the Qixi story, the Chinese lovers in the sky can rejoin each other because of benevolent magpies who form a magic bridge across the sky, and the same dubious awe I feel in imagining that scene, I feel in acknowledging that finding a husband is a most mysterious and inexplicable process.