The Common Cup

At one point during the Orthodox wedding ceremony, the bride and groom drink from a common cup. This is not the Chalice of Communion; it is simply a cup of wine (at our parish, we have wine imported from Cana of Galilee). However, it, like everything else, carries symbolic meaning. The most obvious meaning is that of the bride and groom sharing of one life together, and all that brings.

One interpretation of this that I have come across goes, "Your joys will be doubled, and your sorrows halved, because they are shared."

I've thought about this some since being sick last week. As I said in my last post, I think I had the flu, and it put me out of commission for a few days. During those few days, I was even more grateful for my wife than usual! She took care of me, made sure I ate enough, let me rest, and so on. As I started feeling better, she got sick, and I got to return the favor. I hope I took care of her as well as she took care of me.

I found, last week, that there is certainly something to having a spouse that can take care of you when you're sick. You don't get lonely laying around at home, for one thing. For another, of course, you can relax; you don't have to fix your own meals, which, when all you feel like you can do is sleep is a great blessing. In some ways, it's like being a child again and having your parents take care of you (except, of course, that you're an adult, and your relationship with your spouse is different from your relationship with your parents).

Yeah, this isn't terribly profound, or even well-written, but last week, in a perhaps small way, I think I began to really understand the interpretation quoted above of the common cup. Thank God for my wife!