Dance With the One Who Brung Ya

In keeping with my Water and Marriage theme of the week – my anniversary being tomorrow, it’s not just Shania Twain who sings about staying with the one who brought her to the dance.

The ancient wisdom of Israel also recognized the folly of infidelity. (Proverbs 5:15-17)

Drink water from your own cistern,

running water from your own well.

Should your springs overflow in the streets,

your streams of water in the public squares?

Let them be yours alone,

never to be shared with strangers.

This proverb knows how enticing forbidden love can be; it urges us to guard our hearts and marriage, to resist the beguiling call to squander our sexual energies with strangers. Seeking intimacy outside your marriage is sure to ruin the dance, foul the well or rot the staves of your rain-barrel.

In a land where rainfall is limited, cisterns and wells are crucial assets for farming and domestic life. Cisterns collect the rain and store the overflow of spring-fed wells. They keep water local and accessible.

Recently even in water-rich cities, rain-barrels are enjoying a come-back as tools of environmental stewardship. They’re also a great metaphor for marriage.

Like a rain-barrel that serves a small garden, marriage is exactly right-sized for two people. It nourishes and refreshes the hearts of lovers and helps keep the grass green close to home. Over time marriage becomes a reservoir of private memories and secrets, a haven for intimacy that helps to cement the bond of belonging.

Boundaries protect these intimate gifts of marriage. If boundaries are neglected or compromised, crucial water reserves will leak away. But those who can say with confidence “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” enjoy a rich sense of security, a rewarding sense of belonging, the wonder of being loved extravegantly, unconditionally.

That’s why, when the dance floor gets crowded, you dance with the one who brung ya!

And you go home and drink from the same familiar well – together!