Euche

Euche (yoo’-kay): A vow to keep a promise.

Promises are vexing. They aim toward the future—you never know what the future may bring, including the impossibility of fulfilling a given promise. What if you promise to take your parents to “Jack’s Steakhouse” for their anniversary and Jack’s burns to ground the day before you promised to eat there? Promise broken. Sure, your parents forgive you, but that does not heal the disappointment. The promise set you up. The promise shot you through the heart. The promise pushed you into the abyss between it and its fulfillment—the gap between now and then, today and tomorrow, the present and the future. You can bet on bridging the gap, but don’t bet too much.

The shorter the time between a promise and its fulfillment, the more likely your gamble will pay off. It’s 4.00 pm and you promise to pick her up at 4.15. Good bet! Without car trouble or an earthquake, you’re going to make it! You’re reliable! You’re her kind of guy! There’s a good chance she’ll fall in love with you. “Reliable” is a golden virtue, if not THE golden virtue. Being reliable is like the sun and the moon—they rise, set, and go down every day and night—so reliable—day leads to night. But this is only an illustrative example. Who is THAT reliable?

Think about it: “I’ll love you forever.” Forever? A year later, he or she may be headed out the door. That’s a pretty short “forever.” It is not possible to love somebody forever. You can say “I’ll love you forever” but you can’t. As finite beings, “forever” is beyond us—nobody has experienced it, nobody knows what it is. Where does “forever” begin? But, the “forever” promise is a token of faith, as all promises are to varying degrees.

A promise is an avowal of faith. Avowals are judged by their sincerity. Sincerity cements us socially, truth does too, but it can be judged objectively. Avowals may be judged by signs and tokens: he says he loves me: he treats me with respect. But we know that people are capable of insincerity. So, social connections are always risky, but we need them in order to experience ourselves as whole.

So, all I can say is while long-term promises are operative in many of our lives, the greater the distance between the promise and the present, the greater the likelihood the promise will be breached. People change, promises don’t.

I have been married for 32 years, and there’s no end in sight. I believe I will be married “until death do we part.” as time drifts into the future, and death becomes more palpable, the promise takes on Truth’s character—a strong sincerity based on a judgment of certainty.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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