The television show “Jon and Kate Plus Eight” entertains me. Even though we don’t have eight, there is something about watching parenting little children on a TV that captivates me. Plus, I just cannot begin to understand raising eight children. Then it happened. All of the headlines now are running this family through all sorts of scenarios. The latest People magazine states “We Might Split Up“. When I read that today, I was instantly reminded of a quote by Rob Bell from the book “Sex God“. He simply said, “There’s too many people under the chuppah“. The quote was referring to Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson and their reality show, but I think it applies.
Perhaps the kind-of-famous singer couple who became famous for being married never considered just what they were doing with those cameras. It probably sounded like an interesting idea that would make them lots of money. But many people ended up under the chuppah with them, and they paid for it.
Because when you give something away, you no longer have it. When a couple shares with others what belongs to the two of them, they pay a price. The power and the mystery and, therefore, the strength of the bond come from the exclusivity. When a couple lets people too far in, when we have experienced what is theirs in some mystical way, they don’t have it anymore. They gave it away.
If you do this enough times over a long enough period of time, you’ll end up with nothing that’s yours and yours alone.
A marriage is between those two people, not us. It’s not ours, it’s theirs.
It is my hope that Jon and Kate will kindly ask all of the people to leave their chuppah so that they can focus on their marriage. People magazine isn’t going to fix it. The television channel TLC isn’t going to either. There are too many people under the chuppah and I’m not talking about the 8 children.
AARON CONRAD 