Life Is Mostly Edges by Calvin Miller

Author:Calvin Miller [Miller, Calvin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2018-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

THE GIRL IN GOLD

A wonderful thing happened to me Easter of 1958. Next to my conversion, it was the most significant event in my life. A teenage member of my church showed up in a new Easter frock. I knew her well, for her parents were prominent members of the church. It is odd that you can know someone very well and yet never have really seen her at all.

I think it was the dress that caused me to see her for the first time. It was a light beige sheath dress, low at the neck and delightfully form-fitting, though in no way crass or intentionally inappropriate. About the waist was a gold cummerbund, with pinpoint polka dots set in a sheen of the shimmering damask out of which it was made.

I was amazed. Could this Aphrodite have really been a member of our church and I not seen her till this very moment? I stammeringly told her at the door that her new dress looked great, and I wondered if she would like to have dinner with me on Friday night at the El Sombrero, Enid’s premiere restaurant that served everything from Mexican food to barbeque. She agreed to this, and a year later we were married, though this segment of the tale belongs on other pages of this account.

I know there are evangelical writers who say you shouldn’t kiss until you’re married, but they obviously never knew Barbara. Who could wait that long? Not me. It is true that when we kissed I often wondered what lay beyond the kiss, although we never went all the way until we both wore rings that told the world we were legally going all the way.

But a lover’s kiss, for all the prophecy of fire that it contains, was not the best signal of our devotion. Think me not corny, but it was holding hands. I have now made a five-decade study of this issue, and I’m here to tell you that those who overrate a kiss, do it on the basis of Cyrano’s description. A kiss may be “a rosy dot over the i of loving,” but if so, it is only a dot. People who only kiss are too much interested in the fire that lies beyond it. Watch those who opt for holding hands instead. These know the life of partnership and offer the hand at every patch of ice that threatens life. Hand-holders survive. Kissers slobber and move on to other empty promises of fire.

For the moment, it is enough to say we have now been married for forty-nine years and have found ourselves amazed at the glorious story we have written together. I suppose the issue of just how glorious it is will be for you to consider, and Barbara and I would like to leave it at that.

In May of 1958, I finished OBU. With my bachelor’s degree in hand, I readied myself to attend seminary, and the seminary I chose was Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kansas.

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