Couple Holiness-By Kier Berkel, LPCMH

In addition to my private practice, I also work with adolescents who don’t always make the best choices in their everyday lives. Often, as I discuss my frustrations about today’s youth with colleagues (as if I was the perfect adolescent) I wonder if we can correlate adolescents’ behaviors to the level of spirituality present in their families. On the macro level, we all realize that adolescents will make “bad” decisions, no matter how spiritual or “religious” their parents are, but the question presented itself to me on how important is spirituality to enhancing and sustaining a relationship?

The purpose of this blog is not to preach to you on the importance of being spiritual (holy, religious, or whatever they’re calling it now) or to give a broad definition of what spirituality is. Instead, I would like to discuss spirituality between couples, or what some have called “couple holiness”. There are various behaviors that exemplify this phenomenon, but before I discuss some examples, imagine if spirituality in relationships could be “the only gospel that others will ever read?” Deep, right? Let’s think outside the box, shall we? Is couple holiness only limited to going to church, volunteering, or proselytizing other individuals? Or can we also see couple holiness as togetherness, faithfulness, and commitment and respect towards each other? In short how can a couple reflect love is an often non-spiritual world?

William Roberts, of the University of Dayton has said that the simple (but often neglected) act of sitting down and eating meals are one of many ways of fostering spirituality within a marriage or family. In my own relationship, doing a home repair together, for me is a spiritual experience. The act of using both of our talents and strengths to improve our home is often enlightening and transcends our own individuality. Other examples of “couple holiness” can be but not limited to:

• Making love (not just sex, but heavy petting too!!!!)
• Going shopping together
• Walking in nature
• Reading and discussing a book together.
• Tickling one another
• Sitting quietly with one another
• Checking your children’s homework
• Going to PTA meetings together
• Praising children and each other
• Cooking a meal together

I hope that we who are in a relationship with the “love of their life” would not only limit themselves to a spirituality based on how often they went to church or prayed (not that there is anything wrong with that!!), but to how they reflect their love to our world.

Respectfully,

Kier A. Berkel, LPCMH