Over the Rhine - Drunkard's Prayer

All marriages are broken.

We’re broken people, and when we commit to each other, for better or worse, we are guaranteed that there will be difficult — sometimes severely painful — times. How we respond to those trials will depend largely on our priorities and our beliefs. Am I in this for my own personal satisfaction? Or am I in this to give myself to the other person as a living sacrifice? When I made those sacred vows, did I believe them to be sacred — a promise before God as well as my spouse, my family, my friends, my community? Or was the wedding ceremony just a traditional ritual, and I can still break it off if the going gets really tough?

These things are on my mind as I listen again to Over the Rhine’s new album Drunkard’s Prayer, which is an intimate, personal, and piercing work about “for better, for worse” … especially about finding better in the face of worse.