If one follows Christ through thick and thin, one does not follow him blindly, accepting literally the truth of everything he said, even if he spoke in metaphor rather than with legislative precision. You attempt the thing which you think he would most dearly have wished you to attempt, irrespective of success or failure. And it is different for everybody.
For me it was the idea that immortality could so infuse human relationships as to achieve perfection; with the remote possibility that it would result in a literal immortality, and the much greater possibility that through a clear beholding, and the ability to read each others thoughts, a man and a woman might be able to transcend the atrocity of War. But the spirit of immortality is a poor qualification for solving the everyday problems of life. So she was right; as I came to recognize eventually.
There is generally a limit to the extent two people are willing to surrender to each other. When this is so, it is better to admit it, rather than go further and fail to live up to one’s professed enthusiasms. The psalmist talks about, “The King’s daughter, all glorious within”. That is infinitely better than deception and manipulation within.
But if two people did manage to surrender to each other completely, probably they would change each other so completely that it would be beyond knowledge for them to know what the result would be. Yet I hoped it would be a union of such harmony, integrity, truth and generosity as would enable human character to grow to its full stature. In other words, recreate Adam and Eve before the Fall; although historically they only existed in the imagination of one of the greatest storytellers of all time.