Wanting to surprise you on this Valentine’s Day, I have chosen to read a less well-known story of love. I found it in Gail Godwin’s retelling of Ovid’s story of Baucis and Philemon from her extraordinary book “Heart”. It always intrigues us that a couple can live together happily for 50 or 60 years or more. These two have become as one and yet have retained their individuality. It is easy to say, and yet, so remarkable. They have reached the stage in their marriage that Robert Johnson calls stirring “the oatmeal porridge” – warm, sustaining but not exciting – life-long companions, who can say with Robert Browning: “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!”
Songs of Life
