Home Sweet Home But It was an Empty Box at first
Home Sweet Home - Nevertheless, it was an empty box at the beginning!
Home is not a place to talk about "who is right or wrong". It sounds that it doesn't make sense. But it is real. It is true, extremely true. Many husbands and wives, many families, through ages, along with hardships, love and hatred, and a lot of misunderstandings and mistakes, during intangible confusions and chaos, draw this conclusion:
When a couple struggles to determine who is right or wrong, this family starts to find some shadows. Each person find one's own pseudo-favorable theories, digging out the other person's shortcoming and fuss, trying to harm the other one's reputation. Finally, both would get hurt and it would be very hard for them to recover the relationship. For a lot of couples arguing who is right, they end up becoming un-lovable persons. They don't understand that home is not a place to talk about who is right or wrong, but a place filled with love and care, never pursuing who is better than the other one. It is not a place to account for how much one person owing to the other one.
家不是一個講理的地方．這句話聽起來，很沒有道理，但千真萬確，這句話是真理，是至理，是多少夫婦，多少家庭用多少歲月，多少辛酸，多少愛恨，多少是非，多少對錯，在糾纏不清難解難分的混亂中，梳理出來的一個最後結論．當夫婦之間開始據理力爭時，家就要開始布上陰影．兩人都會不自覺地各抱一堆面目全非的歪理，敵視對方，傷害對方，最後只能兩敗俱傷，難以收場 .
多少夫妻，為了表面的一個理，(得理不饒人的心態, 認為自己有理, 所以生氣, 指責對方) 落得負心無情．他們不知道，家不是講理的地方， 而是溫情講愛的地方. 不用計較比強．更不是算帳的地方．
Then, what is home? Where is home? When we are young, like many other couples, we could not answer these questions properly. We often argue with each other for some miscellaneous issues.
One year when we talk about how to help our brother-in-law to move to a different location, we argued with each other so seriously that we reached to a point that we would break up and get divorced immediately. Just because in those days we were very much ashamed to face the divorce issues, we did not end up to a miserable result. Until one day, one of my friends addressed in the wedding ceremony of his child to wish that "the married couple shall support each other until the death, and love each other for ever." This simple word of "Love" struck me like a flash of lightning in the thunder at the spring time. Home is not a place to talk about "who is right or wrong" but a place filled with love. It is quite easy to say that I love you at one time. It is very hard however to love each other for ever. There are some tricks in dealing with long-lasting love relationships. Moreover, marriage is an empty box. We have to deposit a lot of lovely things in the box. The more we deposit in the box, the more merit we will gain from this box.
那麼，何為〔家〕，家是什麼地方？我們年輕的時候，也回答不了這個問題；也像許多夫妻那樣，為一點小事爭鬧不休．有一年我們為了小叔的調動問題，大吵了一場，甚至鬧到要離婚的地步．只是在那個時代我們還缺乏勇氣．直到有一天，一位老戰友在他孩子的婚禮上說：〔希望你們白頭偕老，相愛永遠〕時，愛這簡短的字，像春雷響在我心頭． 是的，家不是講理的地方，家該是講愛的地方．愛一時很容易，愛一生一世卻不容易，這裡頭含許多妙處需要我們去總結和體會．其次我們要告訴你：婚姻是個空盒子，你必須往裡面存滿東西，才能取回你要的東西；你放的愈多，得到的也就愈多．
When people get married, they have a lot of expectations. They hope to gain wealth, consolation, love, tranquility, happiness and health. In fact, at the time people got married, the new family was just like an empty box. This couple has to learn good habits to share, to love, to respect, and to praise each other. After that, this empty box would then be filled up gradually. The first thing we should deposit in the box is "missing spouse ". This is a way to make the couple engraved in their hearts with a deeply loving relationship. It cultivates an emotion that they all confirm love and passionate with each other. Missing spouse is the way that leads weary people to feel warm in the frigid winter, and it is the way that makes people feel cozy at the dinner time. The second thing to deposit in the empty box is "arts", "the arts of family life". In the family life, there are a lot of opportunities which need these arts, e.g., to incorporate the arts when one is enraged or arguing with the other.
很多人結婚時，對婚姻有許多期盼，期盼從中可以得到富貴，藉慰，愛情，寧靜，快樂，健康，其實婚姻開始的時候，只是一個空盒子．走到一起的兩個人，一定要養成一個習慣，去給，去愛， 彼此侍奉，彼此讚賞，日後，那個空盒子才會日漸豐富起來．空盒子最先該放的應該是〔思念〕，思念是一種使我們刻骨銘心的一條路．
它是兩個人有了肯定，有了感情，然後進而關懷，進而疼愛的一種情緒．〔思念〕是疲憊時通向家庭的一條小路，是寒冷冬夜中一股暖意，是匆忙推開家門後撲面而來家中的飯香. 空盒子必須放進〔藝術〕，婚姻生活中的藝術．
在婚姻生活中，需要講藝術的地方無處不在，生氣有藝術，吵架有藝術．
There was a couple who raised up 5 children, knowing all the hardships about raising the kids. One day, the husband and wife argued about some family tidbit, somehow the arguments became worsen, and it was so seriously that it reached to a point that leads almost to a dead end. Suddenly, the wife indicated that she had to give birth to another one. This sentence was indeed one part of the arts. In the family box, besides missing spouse and the arts, we can deposit in a lot of other things, which need to be figured out in our family life as time goes on. Here I just remembered some words from a famous writer, "That you raise them and educate them are your sole responsibility. And that the best gift you can give to your children is a pair of wings".
有一對夫婦含辛茹苦養育了五個孩子，其中之艱難，只有他們自己能體會．一天，夫妻為了孩子的一件小事吵起來，越吵越厲害，眼看不可收拾了，妻子突然說：等一下，我要去生孩子了．這句話，就是吵架的藝術．
婚姻的盒子中除了放〔思念〕和〔藝術〕外，還有許多東西，都可以放進去，這有待於你們自己去填補．寫到這裡想到一位作家說過的一句話
〔你們生養他，教育他，你們的責任已盡，而你們給他最好的禮物，是一對翅膀〕．
Finally we would like to share with you the rule for the husband and wife -
To love someone, we need understanding as well as solution; apology as well as thanksgiving; confession as well as correction; consideration as well as sympathy; acceptance but not anger; forgiveness but not pampering; support but not manipulation; consolation but not inquisition; listening but not accusation; memory but not abandon.
最後我們明白夫妻相處的原則，大家共勉之！
愛一個人
要了解， 也要開解；
要道歉， 也要道謝；
要認錯， 也要改錯；
要體貼， 也要體諒；
是接受， 而不是受氣；
是寬容， 而不是縱容；
是支持， 而不是支配；
是慰問， 而不是質問；
是傾訴， 而不是控訴；
是難忘， 而不是遺忘；
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrong-doing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (Cor. 13, 4-7)