Selection and Pair Matching

One of the most satisfying perks of being a real writer must be the satisfaction of creating through fiction what is so seldom found in reality; an ideal pairing or grouping. When a scrappy band of misfits combines itself into a solid found-family unit, and each member uses their strengths to supplement the other members weaknesses, readers come away from the book content and happy. There are few things that spark joy like reading or watching the talents and powers of a group combine to defeat a common enemy.

It's also satisfying to read about two characters, historical or otherwise, who are drawn together in love, and whose love binds them together to create something together that is greater than the sum of their parts. Just like in fiction, when we see a couple who works together well, we are liable to think them a good match. A good fit.

In those couples there must be a fine balance between similar interests and complementary character differences and thought patterns. Couples who are not an ideal match personality-wise can make up the balance by a similarity of vision. A relationship may be ennobled by the sustenance of something greater than just a mutual consumption each of the other. The vision produced by  two people cannot be a selfish picture, or it won't live longer than the couple. Although a paired love creates a relationship, a lasting relationship must include children, community, and creation. In his essay titled 'The Body and the Earth', Wendell Berry names one of the subsections 'Fidelity'. In it, he writes:

Fidelity can thus be seen as the necessary discipline of sexuality, the practical definition of sexual responsibility, or the definition of the moral limits within which such responsibility can be conceived and enacted. The forsaking of all others is a keeping of faith, not just with the chosen one, but with the ones forsaken. The marriage vow unites not just a woman and a man with each other; it unites each of them with the community in a vow of sexual responsibility toward all others. The whole community is married, realizes its essential unity, in each of its marriages. 

In the Bible, the man and wife represent Christ and his church. The joining marriage is important in that it symbolizes the binding of Christ with the church. Clearly, God is of the mind that marriage is holy; an earth-bound example of a concept that He would like us to strive for in a more spiritual sense. The awareness of the place of a relationship in the world and before God can be an important and useful part of a couple's vision. A vision that stretches beyond children to grandchildren and great-grandchildren and the care of the eventual family community is noble and worthy.

When a couple works well together as a unit, and binds together against conflict instead of being separated by it, then they can begin to affect the world. If you love someone, but it would not be safe to bind yourself to them, then you should not be with them. If you bind yourself to someone who cannot grow with you, then your necessary process of growing will only bring pain, and not the joy of discovery and realization. When both parts of a couple are safe and secure and stimulating for the other, and the home is not a battleground, then others can find refuge under the wings of the relationship, whether that be children or those who need help and protection.

There is so much satisfaction in a good match that it has often been seen as a virtue in itself. Matchmakers and matchmaking have always had a place because it is self-evident that productive pairing benefits not only two people, but their community, their children, and their souls. Love is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and if love is selfish, only selfishness can come from it. If you can bring good forth from your work, and your mind, and your heart, find someone who can help you take that good and with their own good together use love to create faithfulness and fortresses and fruit.