An eventful week; a grateful me

The younger ex-teen got married last weekend; it was a celebration of great joy—and also relief.

You see, Grandma Bessie (my mom) was planning to visit us, arriving Tuesday night. But rather than going to the airport, she went to the emergency room due to abdominal pain, severe and unrelenting. My mobile phone exploded with text messages. The phrase “aortic <something>” was heard. X-rays and CAT scans were discussed.

They had me at “aortic”; I started checking flights, but didn’t book anything until the medical folks settled on the diagnosis: aortic aneurysm. I clicked “Book this flight” for Alaska 837, SJC→HNL Wednesday morning.

Wednesday

Am I getting old, or was it just the stress, or have the seats gotten harder? Whatever it was, I was hurting by the time we landed. Inga picked me up and we went straight to Queen’s. Dr. Sato came in and advised Mom to get the endovascular aneurysm repair, maybe like the one decribed here on webmd.

As I heard the story, Mom had said she’d consider it; today the surgeon was recommending it. He itemized a bunch of risks, things that might happen during surgery. They’re not frequent, he said, but they do happen. I asked him what he would recommend for his own mother, if she had a similar condition. Surgery.

He told Mom of a past, younger patient of his. He recommended the surgery, she declined, she went home, the aneurysm ruptured, and she died the same day. Mom was sold, and Dr. Sato indicated that he’d try to do the endovascular aneurysm repair Thursday afternoon.

Then an anaesthesiologist came in, describing how the anaesthesia itself had risks (beyond the surgery), including death! My comment was, we don’t have many alternatives here.

Thursday

In the morning we heard the surgery would be at noon! I ran down to the hospital, having spent the night at “home,” and hung around until they shooed me out. I sat in the waiting room for a while, and then sister Donna said I could join her in pre-op. After some confusion, the nurse and I found each other, and she ushered me in to Mom’s area, where it was freezing. I was impressed by the keep-warm technology.

Mom was mightily bored by all this and kept dozing off, or maybe she just closed her eyes. Eventually they said they were really going to do the surgery, and I snapped a pic just as she was about to go to the “OR.” The photo is dated 1:57pm.

I went home for a nap, and Mom was done about 5:20pm. The surgery had gone well, I heard. I eventually figured out how to get to the surgical waiting room in QE Tower. Quite a few folks were there, sister Inga and nieces and nephew; several of them were still heading to California for the wedding.

They let me into the recovery area after a while, and I joined Donna there. Mom would have to lie flat for four hours, the first two with sandbags on her thighs, to discourage reopening of the surgical incisions (pokes, actually). She wasn’t too happy about that.

I held Mom’s hand for the next 3 hours or so, giving her Bible passages or praying or chatting or just sitting. At some point Donna took my parking ticket to a nurses’ station, where they stamped it for me. I would later find out that the afternoon’s parking would be on the house :).

At the 7:00pm shift change, the new nurse asked Mom if she knew where she was.

“Hospital,” she murmured.

“Do you remember the name of the hospital?”

“Queen’s.”

“Do you know what month and year it is?”

“October,” she croaked.

“And do you know remember the year?”

“Seventeen.” It was barely a whisper.

“Who are these people?” the nurse asked, indicating Donna and me.

“I don’t know!” she said. Very funny, Mom! The nurse wasn’t fooled for a moment.

Some other post-op procedures were needed. An X-ray for example. So the X-ray guy showed up after a while and said something about sitting her up. The nurses updated him on the situation; I didn’t have to tackle him.

Around 10pm the nurse moved her to a private room in QE tower. We were about to exit the elevator on the 8th floor when an EMERGENCY indicator lit up, the doors closed, and the elevator expressed back whence we came.

The doors opened to reveal a nurse with a surprised expression; he released the elevator, mumbling something about grabbing another one, and the elevator returned to the 8th floor. Our nurse explained that some ICU patients must be transported without delay immediately after surgery; they cannot wait.

Mom got situated and after a while, Donna suggested I go home. No argument from me on that.

Friday

The next morning, Dr. Sato dropped by Mom’s room to ask how she was doing. Any pain? Mom shook her head no.

He smiled. “See? Told you!”   He also said, “You can go home today as far as I’m concerned.” No medication needed, but Mom should take it easy the next couple of weeks.

I ran “home” so Jana could take me to the airport. (I had already packed my things.)

My return flight was uneventful, but all too long. Again my seat hurt. The lovely Carol picked me up late Friday night.

Saturday

I’d missed Friday afternoon’s rehearsal, but I was assured all I had to do was follow directions—always a challenge for me, but perhaps it would be OK this time.

Several friends of Peter and Sheri spoke at the ceremony; each one added a unique perspective, so that all of us present got glimpses of both bride and groom. I have to tell you that as much as I respected and esteemed Peter before the ceremony, his friends’ comments made me feel even happier to have him in our family. The celebration was intimate and meaningful and and God-honoring.

By the way, my nephew Keith unobtrusively live-streamed the ceremony; Mom and Donna and Jana and Mom’s great-grandchildren all could see it.

As I said at the reception, “It’s hard to be humble when Peter is your son-in-law!” Oh, and we “facetime”d with Mom at the reception. She looked happy.

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I am a very grateful man today. I wasn’t quite in a panic Tuesday, but as I said several times, it was a little too exciting. Aortic aneurysms are often fatal; it was fortunate indeed that Mom had a lot of pain so that she would know to go to the hospital. And it was fortunate that the symptoms appeared before she came to California.

And now both my daughters have husbands that make it impossible for me to be humble.

And it’s also really hard to be ungrateful. My cup is full, even as the nest is empty.

Can counseling actually help a marriage?

Some marriages, yes. If you love each other (as Carol and I do), and if you genuinely want your marriage to work better (ditto), and you’re willing to ’fess up to your own shortcomings so that you can learn and grow (which we do, somewhat), then yes. I’ll give an example of how this can work, from the life of an anonymous young couple:

The couple loved each other very much. Yet, when the wife spent a weekend at a women’s retreat (away from her new husband) she realized that she felt freer and happier at the retreat; she did not look forward to returning home. Her husband wanted/expected her to do XYZ (or so she thought), and although she didn’t like it much, and he knew it (or so she thought), she felt she should.

(XYZ isn’t relevant, though it’s not anything you couldn’t tell your kids.)

How much did the husband want his wife to XYZ? How aware was he of her feelings about it? There were other issues, but as I heard the story, someone at their church recommended a certain counselor, and they went for a series of visits. There they learned a technique for resolving an issue; it worked like this:

You agree on some object—this salt-shaker, say. One person, say the wife, goes first: while holding the salt-shaker, she is allowed to share her perception of events, her feelings, etc. As long as it’s the wife’s turn, her husband is not allowed to speak, except to clarify and confirm his understanding of what his wife said, for example:

So you’re saying that when I spend $_____ on a new ________ without discussing that with you first, you feel ________—is that right?

Once the wife is satisfied that her husband understands her concern, she places the salt-shaker back on the table, and their roles are reversed.

The technique brought better mutual understanding, peace, and happiness to this couple. Could they have read about the technique in a book or magazine, or on a blog? Sure they could have, but there are about 30,000 such techniques out there. The counselor didn’t give them 300 or 30 or even 10 techniques; they got one technique to try, and it worked well for them.

Several years later, their marriage is much stronger and happier. Whether they use that particular technique today I have no idea, but I’m certain they could, should the need arise.

Another example comes from our own lives, and I’ll try to summarize. Carol and I got into a huge fight. It was hurtful and demoralizing for both of us. She felt hurt by something I said, then she said something that made me crazy, and I said things I should not have said… we saw our counselor a couple days later.

Penny asked me to explain what happened from my perspective, to share my perceptions. So I said how we had decided upon something a few weeks earlier, and on Saturday Carol said something related to it, and I answered thus and so (based on our earlier decision).

It later came out that she felt unhappy about this, for other reasons that I didn’t understand. But when she expressed her feelings to me early Monday morning, I felt sorely vexed and said things that were unhelpful, and she felt even unhappier. I was getting more and more upset, I said, and I saw this was going nowhere, so I apologized loudly and repeatedly, and fled to work. En route, I listened to the daily prayer from pray-as-you-go.org and asked God for help. (As I recall, the reading was from Genesis 1, including “Let there be light,” and I prayed for light to shine in my dark heart.) There’s more, but I think that’s enough to give a general idea of the conflict.

How does a counselor help? The first thing is that we were under adult supervision, and we also wanted to make the session as productive as possible. Consequently, we did our best to be calm and rational. After I recounted my perception of events, Carol explained a few things. (When at Penny’s, we try especially hard not to interrupt each other.) Penny suggested some changes in the way we say certain things. Carol asked if a particular wording change would help, and I said it probably would. I requested that certain things not be said, and Carol agreed. (She really had no idea of the effect some phrases have on me.)

Penny encouraged me to tell Carol that I never intend to push her out of her comfort zone. When I did that, I added, “and I know, when I remember to think of it, that you never intend to do that to me.”

It’s important for Carol that she hear those things; it’s also important for me that I say them. As Merton writes, “we become real by telling the truth.”

We left Penny’s office with hopeful hearts, and have got along more smoothly since then.

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 20:5 that The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out. (2011 NIV)

So a trained counselor has insight that can illuminate what’s going on. She or he may have techniques that can be conveyed. The office provides an environment where all parties do their best to be calm and rational (the clock is ticking and money is being spent). Another thing about the office is this: once you have a few successful talks there, your mind will think of it as a place of hope and calm.

For all those reasons, a counselor can indeed be very helpful for a couple who desire to love and understand each other better.

Why fast?

Our self-denial is sterile and absurd if we practice it for the wrong reasons or, worse still, without any valid reason at all.

Merton, No Man Is an Island 6.7 (p. 101)

So what's a reason that's not wrong? What's a valid reason for fasting?

For a while I had a habit of fasting on Sundays: I'd skip lunch. But why did I do it? Well, I didn't have a valid reason, and I stopped after a while.

So what is a valid reason? Merton helps us again here:

… The perfection of Christian renunciation is the total offering of ourselves to God in union with the sacrifice of Christ. …

To offer this sacrifice perfectly we must practice asceticism, without which we cannot gain enough control over our hearts and their passions to reach such a degree of indifference to life and death.

Merton, op. cit., p. 102

So that's the point: to gain control over our hearts and their passions, so that we can become indifferent to food or whatever we're attracted (or addicted) to, so that we can get closer to the ideal: to offer our whole selves to God, to be indifferent to everything except the will of God.

And that's a valid reason: to be free of our own appetites and passions, not just regarding food, but anything that one might be (or become) addicted to. As Paul writes to married couples in 1 Corinthians 7.5, which I had not understood before: Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.

The point, of course, isn't that husbands and wives spend so much time in bed that they have no time to pray; rather, it's that by abstaining voluntarily for a (brief) time they can surrender more of themselves to God.

For a brief time, that is.

Priority of marriage: quote (almost) without comment

From a 1991 sermon by Tim Keller:

No relationship is more fundamental than the relationship between a husband and a wife. It's the primary relationship. Father/mother/child relationship is secondary. And therefore your spouse and your marriage has to be your #1 priority; it has to come before your career; it has to come before your friends; it has to come before your children--that's a very hard one especially nowadays, it really is; it has to come before anything else.

Now afterwards I got a number of questions about this. Somebody came up to me and said to me, "All right, what if the man thinks that he is putting his marriage first but the woman thinks he's not? How do you solve that?" Or, "What if the woman thinks she is putting her marriage first and the man thinks she isn't? How do you solve that?"

It's simple: if one person thinks the marriage is first and the other person thinks it's not, then it's not. It's simple.

Dr. Timothy Keller, Marriage as Priority & Friendship September 8, 1991
starting about 12 minutes in

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You might also be interested in Dr. Keller's explanation of The #1 cause of marriage problems, which he also mentions in the above sermon.

The #1 cause of marriage problems

I started listening to a series of sermons about marriage; the lovely Carol found them on the Redeemer Pres website—on sale! The first sermon introduced the series; we heard that long passage from Ephesians 5, starting in verse 21. In the version I memorized, 5:21 reads: ...being subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

This verse (Ephesians 5:21) holds the key to the #1 cause of marriage problems, according to Dr. Keller. What is that cause? Self-centeredness! And from my completely arbitrary sample size of one (1) marriage, he's right.

I mean, in my marriage, the #1 cause of problems is self-centeredness: mine in particular. (It's all about me!) We were talking about this in my small group of guys, and I actually told them that. Well, not in those exact words; I think I said "selfish" rather than "self-centered". I mean, I really do want to put the lovely Carol at a higher priority than my ideas and projects and so on... just not right at this moment.

Right? Isn't that an illustration of the problem?

The point I really liked (sorry I don't have the link handy; you can find it just as easily as I can) was his comment that we all have woundedness and selfishness. Though my wounds might make my selfishness a little more severe, I was selfish from the day I was born (sorry, Mom). And so were you! And so were your kids! Little kids do need to be taught to share and to take turns; they do need to be socialized. The idea that kids are born perfect is truly silly.

Anyway, we have wounds, and we need to be cared for; we also have selfishness, and we need to repent. If two people decide that their need to be cared for exceeds their need to repent, that's like two fleas, each thinking the other is the dog.

What if both partners say/think this: "I need to repent of selfishness more than I need you to take care of me; I should put you first, rather than insisting that you care for me first"? Great things can happen. Unlimited possibilities!

May the Lord help us to keep on doing so.

Keller talks on marriage at Google

It's at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9THu0PZwwk

Here are my unsanitized incomplete distracted inaccurate [etc] notes.

Preface: Presenting Christian views of marriage. Some of you think, "That's partisan." Well, whatever your view, it's partisan; it's religious or quasi-religious; it's not scientific.

Essence of marriage

You've heard it said, "I love you, why do I need a piece of paper to tell me I love you?" "Marriage is just a piece of paper" but what does the piece of paper do? What does the covenant relationship do?

1. Adds security. There are two types of relationships:
   • consumer-type relationship. You buy stuff at the store, that's great, but if you find another store that provides same stuff at better prices, you'll go there, because your needs are much more important than your relationship with the grocer or whoever.
   • covenant relationship. If your kid cries and is selfish and bratty, you have responsibility; you can't just dump him somewhere with "you're not meeting my needs."
   If you're "dating" and not married, you don't have a covenant, you're in a consumer-type relationship where the other person could just leave at any time. So you have to continuously sell yourself; you can't just be yourself; the covenant creates the security within which you can be vulnerable and honest.
2. Adds stability. 2/3 of "unhappy" marriages, if they stick it out, are happy 5 years later. What keeps you in there, through hard times, to something really great? Think Ulysses past the island of the sirens, tied to the mast.

   Auden, "Any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate" because it's the product of time and will, not just of fleeting emotion.

3. It adds freedom. Kierkegaard: if you don't know the discipline of making a promise and sticking to it, you're not free; you're slave to your impulses, the moment, the circumstances, your feelings. Hannah Arin: without promises, no identity. Smedes, "when you make a promise you are most free."

"He loves me but doesn't want to marry me." Keller: "He probably means, ‘I don't love you enough to marry you, to lose my independence, to bind myself to you in a covenant relationship.’"

Mission of marriage

What's your marriage for? What do you hope to accomplish with it? To many people, it's passion and romance, maybe to combine your fortunes together to form a more comfortable life.

The Christian purpose is for deep character change through deep friendship. People want a compatible soul-mate... who will accept me the way I am and whom I can accept and appreciate just the way they are; someone who won't try to change me. If you want that, that's why you're not married yet. You want someone low-maintenance who won't change and won't try to change you. But no such person exists, and you're not that way either. You pose like someone who is, but you're not; you've got flaws. What might some flaws be?

• fearful person with tendency to anxiety
• proud person who tends to be selfish
• inflexible person who tends to be demanding
• undisciplined person who tends to be unreliable
• perfectionistic person who tends to be too critical of others
• impatient, irratible person who tends to hold grudges
• a cowardly person who tends to twist the truth to look good

Everyone comes into marriage with these kinds of things. Your parents told you, your siblings told you, but you didn't really believe them. But you get married, and those issues that caused small problems now cause big problems. Marriage doesn't create flaws, it reveals them.

Hauerwas says, we assume there's someone out there who's just right for us, but this overlooks the fact that we always marry the wrong person.

Marriage is a huge thing and it changes us. So we change. Hence even if you could find someone compatible to marry, after you've been married awhile, they won't be any more! So what are the Christian responses to this?

• First, not to be surprised, because the Christian view is we're all selfish. Think Kim Kardashian. Embrace the conflict.
• Don't look for a finished statue, look for a great block of marble. You want to be in love with the person as they are, but you want to love the person they're becoming. Don't overdo what they look like, as that'll change. Don't focus too much on their character as it is today, but who they could become!
• Look for someone who could be your best friend. Remember that great friendship doesn't come out of great sexual chemistry; it's other way around. The praise of the praiseworthy is its own reward.

  The feeling I got the first time I kissed her was shallow; it was all ego. It wasn't about her; I had no idea who she was. It was about me, the thrill that she liked me. Now it's like a deep river that makes no noise, vs a babbling brook one inch deep.

The secret of marriage

To be able to love your spouse for periods when you're getting very little back. They might be discouraged, sick, absorbed in their problems. Very important to keep on giving love. That takes a source of love from outside.

Seen this happen a lot of times: give to child, don't get much back, but you give and you sacrifice [etc] anyway for 18 years. These actions engender deep feelings of love. But your spouse -- if you don't love me the way I want, I won't love you the way you want, and at the end of 18 years, you love your kid, you don't love your spouse, and the marriage falls apart.

And it's your fault because what you did with your kid you didn't do with your spouse. "Love philanthropy." Financial philanthropy possible when you got a lotta money. Love philanthropy possible if you got a lotta love from God.

Christ loved us not because we were lovely but in order to make us lovely.

Q&A

• On finding a spouse, not just physical; what criteria? 4 or 5?

  First, someone who really understands you, maybe better than you know yourself. Who isn't surprised by your reactions. Second, someone you can already solve problems with -- had a serious conflict, solved it in a way satisfactory to both people.

  btw if your faith is important to you, then for somebody to "get" you they have to share your faith.

• I think we have a great marriage, my husband would say I have a lot of flaws and am not making real good progress. How can I change? I think I'm trying but it's harder than I thought.

  If you agree on what needs to be changed, then 2/3 of your problem's over; you just need a coach. You might want to get a 3rd party involved. You need add'l fellowship.

• Love analogy of truck exposing stress fractures in a bridge; kids are like a 2nd truck. Your perspective on that?

  You spend more time together but you're not talking with each other as much as talking through the kids. Probably not so much disagreements about children, but time. You might travel less, work fewer hours, to get time with family -- but time with my wife very specific.

  Mothers get a lot of their "skin hunger" addressed with kids and don't have as much desire for physical intimacy as husbands have. Husbands' desire is less complex.

• Criteria... sounds like it could take a long time to be sure about that.

  If you go to a film, have dinner, that's maybe an hour of conversation; doesn't have to take a whole lotta time.
  At other end, you describe the case of both spouses withdrawing, and it's been going on 18-20 years, what do you do?

  Too general a case. There are grounds for divorce so I don't know that you absolutely can work it out. Intervention.

• About attraction -- ego rush vs real love?

  Ego rush is inevitably there. If the main thing that attracts you is physical (women disproportionately look at height and economics; men likewise disproportionatelylook at body and face)... you need something more.

• Role of dating? Dating vs engagement etc?

  Nothing in Bible about dating. Lots about marriage in the Bible. All I can tell you is, get a picture of marriage and let that affect dating. As you get older, probably you shouldn't be dating if in your view there's no way you could get married to that person.

• Advice for an engaged couple? Not premarital counseling.

  The book is basically about that. So don't get discouraged in the short term. The basic cancer is self-centeredness. It's not "I've got into conflict w/spouse; marriage has brought me into conflict with my self-centeredness." Mission of marriage: become best friends and figure out how that happens. Look at sex as a covenant renewal ceremony, or covenant cement.

  Sex outside marriage is no preparation for sex within marriage. They're completely different.

• What you've said about marriage, most of that would apply to gay marriage. What role in society?

  Christian view of marriage is that it's between a man and a woman, because primary mission connected with bringing together people of diametrically opposed genders. We clash and mesh. It's intrinsic to the Christian idea of marriage. My wife teaches me things that I could not learn from another man.

Collin reads "chick lit"

So we were on vacation in an exotic foreign city and stumbled upon a trade paperback copy of The Pretend Wife, by Bridget Asher (author of My Husband’s Sweethearts). OK, let's at least try to be open-minded, shall we?

The plot has an unsatisfying deus ex machina ending, as some amazon.com reviews suggest, but the question that interested me from the book is this: What is the appropriate level of, ah, intensity in a marriage?

Gwen, Asher's first-person narrator, had been involved in an intense, overwhelming relationship in college, then broke up with the guy and married "Peter," who

didn't shove love at me. He didn't lavish it on. He wasn't brimming with love. He doled it out in portions. Love wasn't an ocean—it came in packets....

It was perfect for me when we met. In fact it was all I could have handled.

And, later, as I was learning that it was insufficient, I knew that I was asking too much of him.... And, the truth was, we'd have passed any marital test—from a psychologist to a Cosmo quiz. We made each other laugh. We had enough good sex and regularly so. ... We didn't squabble in public, and we barely ever squabbled at all. ... We were, by all accounts, lovely to be with, a sweet couple that looked nice together walking into a room.

I knew that there were many women out there who would have said: It's enough already. Be happy with what you have. They were right—and wrong.   (70-71)

So Gwen's looking for something more: she wants love like an ocean, peace like a river, joy like a fountain? Something like that maybe.

This put me in mind of Lori Gottlieb's article in the May 2008 Atlantic, featuring the graphic at right. Ms. Gottlieb takes what one might call an opposing point of view, as shown in this paragraph:

My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling ‘Bravo!’ in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It’s hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who’s changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)

Now to the "fish without a bicycle" crowd, Gottlieb's article probably sounds like “Please tar and feather me.”

I have to confess that Asher's book made me a little uneasy. I think that many males have secret or not-so-secret anxieties about whether they're really enough. Am I enough of a husband to the lovely Carol? Am I enough of a... a... whatever-Gwen-wanted?

Reading Asher I feel insecure; I get a sense of relief from Gottlieb. Gottlieb is single and Asher's fictional Gwen is married; this, plus the grass-is-greener syndrome, undoubtedly affect their views of What To Expect From Marriage.

The Pretend Wife reminds me of a fairy tale: it ends with a hint of "and they lived happily ever after" but we actually have no idea whether Gwen will be dissatisfied about something else after a few years with the other guy.

That's life, isn't it? As Lewis's Aslan says, "No one is ever told what would have happened"; neither do we know what will happen to us. Gottlieb doesn't know how she'd feel today if she had in fact "settled" for one of the men she rejected a few years earlier.

Still, there's a part of me that wants the lovely Carol to think I'm enough of a husband—enough of a man perhaps?—for her. Sure, part of that is my own insecurity, my own ego; another part, I think, is that I want her to be happy. As much as I lack as a husband—I actually know I'm not an ideal one—my best self really wants the best for her.

I'll end with a line from Randy Stonehill, completely out of context: "So if You'll trust me I'll do my best and I'll be trusting You for the rest"

A few words on marriage. And sex.

We drove a couple of hours into the valley yesterday for a wedding -- the last remaining single nephew of the lovely Carol is now officially unavailable. Besides the important point that marriage is for "as long as we both shall live," the pastor gave the rest of us a short reminder regarding our duties to support the marriage: the point I remembered was not to ah, "talk steenk" (as we used to say as kids) about one partner to the other.

This could be a very poisonous thing to do -- particularly if we suspect there's some strain in the marriage. I mean, if "Don" and "Mary" might be having some issues, and we send Mary the subliminal (or not-so-) message that if she decided to dump Don, we could certainly understand, what with all the stunts he's pulled recently, etc. -- that could be a terribly destructive thing to do. (On the other hand, it could also be a brilliant support of the marriage, if we know for sure that she'll rise up to defend her husband from these unfair accusations, etc., but that's a risky proposition.).

Instead, we should remind each other that the vow is "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health" and that it really is a permanent deal, a promise.

This morning I heard a brilliant sermon on "I believe in God but I'm in charge of my sex life," where our pastor reminded us of the concept of "chastity" and how it applies to all of us, whether single or married. He explained that the exhortation to us in 1 Corinthians 6:18 ("Flee immorality... ") was not because sexual sins are more heinous in God's view; it's because the consequences are greater upon me, the sinner. It's a helpful reminder to me about the importance of chastity -- I don't want to be hobbled in my pursuit of God any more than I already am.

Something else I liked from this morning's sermon was a bit of dialog between a young, "modern" person who expressed incredulity at the idea of saving sex for marriage. "Nobody's a virgin when they get married these days. I mean, were you and your wife virgins when you got married?" Upon hearing that in fact John and Nancy were, he replied: "No way! There is no way I could live like that!"

So John asked, "How's your way working out for you?" It wasn't working very well at all, as it turned out. Another pastor, Andy Stanley, was quoted as asking a congregant, "Has having sex outside of marriage made your life better, or just more complicated?" Just more complicated. A lot more complicated.

Not everyone can see the damage that's being done; some just enjoy the pleasure of the experience. But as Cameron Diaz's character says in Vanilla Sky, "[W]hen you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise, whether you do or not." Something profound happens there. "Casual sex" is an oxymoron.

Or, as Lauren Winner writes in Real Sex, "in Christianity's vocabulary the only real sex is the sex that happens in marriage; the faux sex that goes on outside marriage is not really sex at all..." (38). Don't take that too literally! Of course it's real in the sense that it can produce a child, that your body makes a promise, that it can destroy relationships and families, that it can produce intense pleasure. But it's out of place; it's wrong in a fundamental way because it's out of context.

You haven't had enough trouble in your lives...

In Kent Haruf's marvelous Plainsong, a high-school teacher visits two bachelor ranchers to ask them to take in a homeless pregnant 17-year-old. They're about to realize it:

All right then, Harold said, you got our attention. You say you don't want money. What do you want?

She sipped her coffee and tasted it and looked in the cup again and set it back on the table. She looked at the two old brothers. They were waiting, sitting forward at the table across from her. I want something improbable, she said. That's what I want. I want you to think about taking this girl in. Of letting her live with you.

They stared at her.

You're fooling, Harold said.

No, Maggie said. I am not fooling.

They were dumbfounded. They looked at her, regarding her as if she might be dangerous. Then they peered into the palms of their thick callused hands spread out before them on the kitchen table and lastly they looked out the window toward the leafless and stunted elm trees.

Oh, I know it sounds crazy, she said. I suppose it is crazy. I don't know. I don't even care. But that girl needs somebody and I'm ready to take desperate measures. She needs a home for these months. And you—she smiled at them—you old solitary bastards need somebody too. Somebody or something besides an old red cow to care about and worry over. It's too lonesome out here. Well, look at you. You're going to die some day without having had enough trouble in your life. Not of the right kind anyway. This is your chance. (109-110)

They are speechless for a bit, and then Harold has a counterproposal:

Hell, Maggie, Harold said at last. Let's go back to the money part. Money'd be a lot easier.

Yes, she said. It would. But not nearly as much fun.

Fun, he said. That's a nice word for what you're talking about. More like pandemonium and disruption, you mean. Jesus God. (110)

Maggie leaves, asking them to call her if they change their minds. Of course you know they will. Raymond decides to take the girl in, and Harold puts up a bit of an argument:

Why wouldn't she be as much trouble? As much trouble as what? You ever had a girl living with you before?

You know I ain't, Raymond said.

Well, I ain't either. But let me tell you. A girl is different. They want things. They need things on a regular schedule. Why, a girl's got purposes you and me can't even imagine. They got ideas in their heads you and me can't even suppose. And goddamnit, there's the baby too. What do you know about babies? (112)

Of course Harold is right. Their lives will change beyond what they can imagine. For the most part, at least as Haruf tells it, their lives have been mostly in control. No, they can't control the weather, but they have technology, like barns and a house and a waterproof box with a gas flame to keep the stock tank from freezing over.

Those are anyway only technological challenges; for relationship challenges they just have each other. Taking this girl in will turn out to be an exciting adventure for them. There's heartbreak, too, but then life is like that.

Especially if we want to live in relationship with God: He loves us too much to let us stay in the same condition we are, so he will bring things into our lives that will help us grow. Our part is to trust him and walk through the door. Not to be foolish or rash, but to trust and obey.

Easier said than done, but the result is goodness.

Have you ever formed the intention...

Last week's sermon, "You're not the Boss of Me," talks a lot about freedom, but what I've been thinking about is something our pastor asks about 05:30 into the message. At this point, he's recounted the part in Exodus 19 where Moses meets the Lord on the mountain, and God tells Moses he wants to establish a covenant with the people of Israel.

You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Exodus 19:4-6

The Israelites replied, "We will do everything the Lord has said" (Exodus 19:8) -- they formed an intention to obey God. They didn't do very well at it, but they did form the intention. Now the rubber meets the road at this point, where the pastor asks all of us, seriously,

Have you ever said, "I will form the intention of doing whatever God tells me to do"?

He goes on to ask if not, why not, and so on, but I wanted to hit the pause button right there.

My problem was that, rather than just continuing to listen and take notes, I actually thought about the question. Have I ever formed the intention? Well, of course I have. But how's it going? What do I think about in the morning when I first wake up? When I'm waiting for the train?

Well, honestly I'm often thinking about me -- my problems, my desires, etc. But this past week, because of that sermon, I've been thinking about what it means to do whatever God tells me to do. "Lord, what does it mean for me to walk with you today?" has been on my mind as I walked from the train to the office. I had a dream this past week, where Galatians 6:10 came up: "Let us do good to all men..."

That's besides all the stuff about being patient and kind, treating others the way I want to be treated, telling the truth and so on.

But really, when I first wake up in the morning, that's not what I usually think about. Often there's an urgent matter that needs my immediate attention, but when there isn't I'm often thinking about how pleasant it is to have my arms around Carol and to have her head resting on my chest. Or situations at work or church and how do deal with them.

So what's my plan? Well, I mentioned Galatians 6:10 earlier? That's a verse I memorized some 30 years ago but haven't reviewed lately. So one part of that is to step up the verse review. At least it'll get me thinking consciously about God, and bring his word closer to my consciousness. Besides that, I'll keep on with my strategies to overcome envy as well as resentment, anxiety and so on. You can ask the lovely Carol how it's working.

The spiritual meaning of Castle

We rented the first DVD for season 1 of this television series, and I find myself liking it. The title character, Richard Castle, is a crime novelist and rather a jackass at times; the detective, Kate Beckett, looks more like a model (come to think of it, so does the novelist) and does her job really well. Castle follows Beckett around on her investigations, sometimes getting in the way and sometimes actually helping to solve the murder (it's always a murder).

Of the first four episodes, two involve adultery. One adulterous husband gets a bullet in his head; another gets knifed by a mistress (she also killed the other mistress). One other adulterous husband was simply served divorce papers by his justifiably peeved wife.

I'm accustomed to cop shows teaching that crime doesn't pay; what (happily) surprises me is pop culture teaching us adultery brings major trouble.

There are other little lessons that I like; in one episode, Castle does something shabby to Beckett. Rather than apologizing, he tries to explain why his deed wasn't that bad. It doesn't fly.

Later, Castle's daughter complains about a boy. Why can't they just say “I’m sorry,” she asks.

Castle goes back to Beckett and apologizes, acknowledges that what he did was bad, says why it was bad, and ends with something like: "and if we never see each other again, I wanted you to know that."

A worthy example.

What's the hardest thing about being married?

David asked me that after he found out how long I've been married (nearly 23½ years).

I smiled and told him about the time when I asked someone that, and got the reply "It's her!" (Hint: That is not the correct answer. And no, that man wasn't serious.)

The truth is: what makes it hard is that I'm not as selfless or humble or generous or loving as I like to think I am. If I weren't so selfish or proud, married life would be a lot easier. It's good to reflect on that fact once in a while.

Science of [staying in] Love

Reading the thinkmarriage blog, I saw this article from Scientific American Mind (which I hadn't heard of before). Here's the blurb:

Nothing is more fulfilling than being in a successful love relationship. Yet we leave our love lives entirely to chance. Maybe we don’t have to anymore By Robert Epstein

It's worth a read.

A cinematic trend I like

Some decades ago, an InterVarsity staffer asked, perhaps rhetorically, when the last time I saw a movie casting married sexuality (as distinct from the one-night-stand variety) in a positive light?

At that time, I had to think back... to, ah, Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People. Today, the lovely Carol and I went to see "Julie and Julia," which incidentally celebrates the happy sex lives of two married couples. It seems to me that this sort of thing is becoming more common, though that may just be my rose-colored glasses (yeah right).

We did enjoy the film. But I ate leftovers (thank you Shelly!) for lunch and made fried rice for dinner.

So how does pornography affect ...

I wrote earlier that I wondered how pornography affected the sex drive of middle-aged men.

Part of the answer appears in Doidge's book, The Brain that Changes Itself, on page 104. For at least some men, "pornography... initially helped them get more excited during sex but over time had the opposite effect." Doidge explains further:

Pornography is more exciting than satisfying because we have two separate pleasure systems in our brains, one that has to do with exciting pleasure and one with satisfying pleasure. The exciting system relates to the "appetitive" pleasure that we get imagining something we desire, such as sex or a good meal...

The second pleasure system has to do with the satisfaction, or consummatory pleasure, that attends actually having sex or having that meal, a calming, fulfilling pleasure.

ibid., p. 108

What pornography does is like creating the smell and sound of a fresh, crisp apple (say) or the aroma of a juicy steak -- while simultaneously sewing your lips shut so you can't ever have the apple or the steak.

This chapter in Doidge's book is not for the squeamish. It is, however, a healthy corrective for the thought that pornography is a victimless crime. The victims are first the consumers, then their wives/girlfriends, and (though Doidge doesn't say so) to a lesser degree every woman they come into contact with. And Dr. Doidge isn't a preacher or a scold, though he does advocate healthier practices.

True confession time: If I could press a magic button and somehow make all pornography and only pornography disappear forever from the internet, I'd press it. You're probably thinking all kinds of things about what pornography really means, how could you possibly know what effects a particular image will have on a particular man, etc. But before you condemn me as a moralistic scold (I wouldn't be scolding, just censoring), read the chapter -- I mean the chapter in Doidge's book, not some Bible chapter.

Oh, and I'd probably start looking for a button that could remove pornography from any other electronic media because of my own weakness, which I know is not uniquely mine. (The Marriott Corp. knows, too -- it gets them lots of money from business travelers and their employers.)

I'd do it for the same reason I'm against cigarette advertising targeted at kids (or at anyone else for that matter): that a society has a duty to its less capable members to protect them from those who want to exploit them. And don't kid yourself--a man addicted to pornography is no master of himself, any more than some teen-ager is when s/he gets hooked on cigarettes of any kind.

The new marriage war

The latest First Things arrived the other day, and I came upon What Does Woman Want? by Mary Eberstadt. Lots of interesting stuff: a rise of unhappiness in women, the effects of pornography on middle-aged men's sex drive, a rise in the "narcissism index" (I can spell "m-y-s-p-a-c-e"). And a mention of a recent article from Caitlin Flanagan's golden pen: "Is There Hope for the American Marriage?" in Time Magazine of all places! An excerpt:

The fundamental question we must ask ourselves at the beginning of the century is this: What is the purpose of marriage? Is it... simply an institution that has the capacity to increase the pleasure of the adults who enter into it? If so, we might as well hold the wake now: there probably aren't many people whose idea of 24-hour-a-day good times consists of being yoked to the same romantic partner, through bouts of stomach flu and depression, financial setbacks and emotional upsets, until after many a long decade, one or the other eventually dies in harness.

Or is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function — to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in it the habits of conduct...

Preach it sister! By the way, Ms. Flanagan isn't a pro-life anti-feminist; as she wrote in this 2007 piece, "... a thousand arguments about the beginning of human life will never appeal to me as powerfully as a terrified pregnant girl desperate for a bit of compassion." ("The Sanguine Sex", the Atlantic, May 2007; also search for the phrase "damn refrigerator" in "The Wifely Duty", January 2003).

Though I differ with Flanagan on some issues, I'm a long-time fan. She does not suffer hypocrites gladly, referring to Mark Sanford (of the Argentine mistress) in the same breath as "other marital frauds and casual sadists," and Rielle Hunter (cf John Edwards) as "this erstwhile cokehead and present-day weasel" (Sex and the Married Man, Atlantic, September 2009).

But it's her passion for the truth and compassion for the downtrodden that makes me glad Flanagan is widely read. Read for example her reply to Drexler's letter in the December'05 Atlantic Letters:

Peggy Drexler's letter repeats, in microcosm, the fuzzy thinking at the heart of her book. Her argument: Traditional two-parent families are no better equipped to raise sons than are "non-nuclear families," and this is good news because there are more female-headed households than ever.

Now let's consider the facts: Fatherlessness is the single biggest crisis facing American boys. It is the No. 1 predictor of poverty, criminality, dropping out of school, and impregnating girls outside of marriage.

How do we reconcile her happy talk with my grim reality? By remembering that as a gender scholar, Drexler is pushing an agenda shaped by the concerns and lifestyle choices of upper-middle-class feminists, gays, and lesbians. Championing the parenting skills of affluent single mothers—a maternally capable, if statistically insignificant, cohort—is not indefensible. Suggesting that the success of these wealthy families means that fatherless boys across the nation are in good shape is reprehensible. Who is speaking for those boys whose lives have been made pitiful because of paternal abandonment and the breakdown of marriage—those boys who have no fathers to protect them, or to teach them how to be men? Not Peggy Drexler.

Or read her remarks in "How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement" from 2004, where she talks about the elephant in the room: women who complain about exploitation, while themselves exploiting an underclass of (mostly) women to do their domestic work.

In contrast to Flanagan's commentary on marriage is Sandra Tsing Loh's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" from the July/August Atlantic. I read it, in print, soon after the magazine arrived, and remembered that we'd recently heard a sermon about marriage and the myths thereof. One of the myths (myth #2, starting at 7:56 on the video, or on p.3 of the transcript) is that "Marriage is about my fulfillment." Which has always been a crock -- do you remember "my wife and I were like two fleas, each thinking the other was the dog"? Eberstadt's remarks about the rising narcissism index may be pertinent here.

Yes, marriage does take work. Someone asked me once what might have happened to me if I weren't following Jesus. "I'd probably be divorced at least once by now," I said. I meant that without Jesus I'd probably be more intolerant and impatient and selfish than I already am -- and thus more divorceable. I also suppose that without the biblical exhortations, marriage as a picture of God and his chosen people (whether the Jews as shown in Hosea and Ezekiel, or the church as shown in Ephesians and Revelation) and the unequivocal declaration "I hate divorce" (Malachi 2) I'd be more inclined to fly the coop when things got tough. And they do get tough; here's Loh:

To work, to parent, to housekeep, to be the ones who schedule “date night,” only to be reprimanded in the home by male kitchen bitches, and then, in the bedroom, to be ignored—it’s a bum deal.

Men of course have their own litanies, which I won't go into here.

Ignored in the bedroom?

When I first read that part about being ignored in the bedroom, I was baffled. But then I remembered that scene near the end of Spanglish where John (Adam Sandler) comes home and says he can't sleep in the same room as Deborah (Téa Leoni), who has had an affair with the realtor. So there's one reason: alienation (or hostility or feeling betrayed).

Sometimes people are just too tired. The lovely Carol may not believe this, but I have had that experience--of being too tired I mean.

Sometimes one or both spouses forget that they love or are loved by their partner. If that is the case they could do a lot worse than visiting Penny McNeel in Palo Alto, who asks some great questions.

Here's something else I'm curious about: what is the effect of pornography on a middle-aged man's sex drive? I thought it tended to make them too carnally minded with regard to their wives (come to think of it, I don't remember that other article saying much about that). However, both Loh's and Eberstadt's pieces suggested that porn-using men are actually less interested in sex, at laest with their wives.

Well, this is something I hope never to find out personally. Lead us not into temptation, you know? But thinking about all this leads me to something I read somewhere: that pornography and other forms of adultery make too little of sex rather than too much. Or, in words attributed to Leonard Michaels, "Adultery is not about sex or romance. Ultimately, it is about how little we mean to one another."

Which brings us back to the narcissism index. Perhaps Eberstadt is on to something here. When I first read her piece, I thought, "Narcissism index? What's that?" Upon discovering that it was based (at least in part) on whether people were likely to agree or disagree with the statement, "I am an important person," I jumped to the conclusion that it was all about the self-esteem teaching we're doing. But if we have collectively discarded the Apostle Paul's exhortation to consider others as more important, then we're all looking out for #1 and nobody means that much to anyone else.

Well, I suppose moral reform begins at home, so I'm going to climb into bed beside the lovely Carol.

Questions for couples

I have some useful questions for couples that are married or might soon be, but first a confession:

Readers might think that I have a perfect relationship with the lovely Carol, or that things are always smooth between us. This is not so; we have our share of struggles. We've said things we wish we could take back, and sometimes things are very uncomfortable. Marriage takes work, and sometimes help is needed from a counselor.

We visited one a few weeks ago, and I wrote down some of the questions we discussed:

1. What works well in your relationship? What do you wish were different?
2. What are three adjectives that describe your parents' relationship as a couple? Do you admire that relationship?
3. Who are your models for what it means to spend time together as a couple?
4. What are your models for resolving conflicts in an intimate relationship?

Obviously variations and extensions are possible -- how did your parents resolve conflicts, what adjectives describe the couple(s) you cited in #3 or #4, etc?

These were great questions for us. #1 for example gave me a chance to enumerate some things I love about our marriage: we smile a lot, I get a kiss in the morning and when I come home, she keeps the house tidy, she listens to me and cares about me, she's a great cook, I love discussing ideas (from books and articles) with her, etc. I didn't mention that I really like the shape of her body (which I do) or, uh, well, I'll stop there.

#3 was also good, because her parents had a different model of spending time together than mine do. That just might have some impact on how each of us thinks about that aspect of relationships.

Though we've been married almost 23 years, I don't think we've ever talked about how our parents' relationships worked, what we liked about their relationships, etc. Until now.

We also talked about what to do when things start to get uncomfortable, but I'll save that for another posting.

Two questions for husbands

A brilliant piece of writing from Love & Stosny's how to improve your marriage without talking about it:

Remember the famous Far Side cartoon of the man talking at length to his dog, Ginger? One bubble had what the man said and the other had what Ginger heard. The man said a lot, but this is what Ginger heard:

"Blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah blah ..."

Unless a woman is emotionally connected to her partner, this is what he will hear when she talks to him:

"Blah, blah, blah, failure. Blah, blah, blah, not good enough. Blah, blah, blah, can't meet my needs. Blah, blah, blah, bad boy."

p. 26

They don't mean that Ginger is as smart as the average husband, because they have a similar passage for what a woman hears when her husband talks. The difference is that "failure" (etc) is replaced by "I don't love you," "I won't be there for you," etc.

Can't we stop hurting each other? We probably can't stop altogether, but we probably can hope for better days. Of course I have a plan; it'll probably improve things over a 20-30 year period. It has two parts, wherein a husband must cement his answers to two important questions:

The first question: Whose am I?

... that is, "To whom do I belong?" E. Stanley Jones said that this question, rather than the one below, is the most important question in any person's life.

The answer? If you belong to The Master, Jesus, I recommend that you reach out to him in prayer daily, maybe something like this:

Lord Jesus, you are full of grace and truth, but I am weak and easily distracted. Help me give myself for my wife as you gave yourself for the church. Give me power to understand and to know your astonishing love. What words do you want to say to my wife today through me?

And if she has some discouraging words for me, help me to know what's truly about me, vs what's about her. Help me to remember that you define me; she doesn't. You are my light and my salvation--who shall I fear? You are the stronghold of my life.

When I remember that I belong to Jesus, I'm a better husband, a better employee, a better neighbor. And now for ...

The other question: Who am I?

If I don't know who I am, I'll just bounce around, foolish, disobedient, led astray, a slave to various passions and pleasures, filling my days with malice and envy, hated by men and hating them in return (Titus 3:3), and so on. If we want to be men rather than beasts, there are a few other things we can and should do:

• Relax. Get enough sleep. We'll have a hard time remembering whose or who we are when we're stressed out.
• Say "No" more often. The Master did that a lot; he never let anyone else set his agenda.
• Take time to be alone, or whatever you need to do, to take care of yourself.
• Give thanks daily.
• As Buechner wrote in Secrets in the Dark, there are times when it is quiet and you don't really have to do anything, when
  

  [t]he time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming.
  

  p. 59

  Often we escape: in chores or other busy-ness, media (printed or electronic), etc. But sometimes we need to take time to do what the time is ripe for. Not to escape, but to look back, think about where we've come from, where we're headed, and so on.

The point of all these is to remain centered, to remember who we are.

And part of who you are is husband. You represent Christ to your wife, as I do to the lovely Carol. Let's ask God to help us remember that we belong to him, and to remember what we are about. Because it's really impossible to do well without his help.

Addendum: a point from the Japanese

When we were in Japan, I learned two words translated "help" in English. One is transliterated "tasukeru" and the other is "sukuu". The first is used when you're, say, trying to carry a heavy load and you'd like a hand. The second is when you're drowning and you need someone to throw you a rope.

When I talk about help from God so I can remember whose and who I am, it's this last I'm talking about.

Ministry priorities for husbands

"Tom" and "Terri" met in Bible school, got married, and a few years later went to a foreign country to tell people about Jesus.

Tom taught in a language school, led students to Christ, and sent them to church. The kids hated the church services, though, and it wasn't long before Tom found himself leading worship on Sundays. These students needed a place to worship God on the weekends, and learn more about Him.

So Tom was busy with his thriving ministry, but life wasn't so nice for Terri. Whereas Tom had grown up in this country as a missionary kid, Terri's parents were missionaries in a different country. She missed her family and friends back in the USA, she missed being able to talk to people at church (NOT her husband's church -- she'd never wanted to be a pastor's wife!); she missed the life she'd left behind. And because Tom was so busy with his job and ministry, she missed her husband, too. They had so much less time as a couple than they used to.

But Terri loved it that people were meeting Jesus, so she didn't want to say anything. Tom knew something was up, though, and eventually Terri told him what was going on. Then Tom did something that convinced me of his faith and his brilliance.

"I have to finish out the semester at the language school," he told Terri, "but I don't have to renew the contract. Why don't you go back home and stay with your mom for a few weeks; when the term is over, I'll pack our stuff up and move back, and we can find some way to serve the Lord back in the States."

We met Tom and Terri in Japan, some years after all this happened. You guessed it -- after a few weeks with her mother, Terri was ready to go back overseas and rejoin Tom. It's not that she got tired of her mother and brothers; she needed time away from the pressures of overseas life to think about what was really important to her. You can be sure Tom was praying hard during those weeks.

Sam and Sally's story

"Sam" was also very interested in ministry. His wife "Sally" was fully supportive when he started seminary studies.

The first year was okay, but classes got harder and Sam was spending more and more time at the library. He was rarely home for dinner. Sally and the children missed him, but Sam was obsessed: he didn't just want to do well -- he wanted to graduate at the top of his class! Sally was increasingly frustrated, but Sam convinced himself he was doing God's will.

Sam was, of course, only feeding his own ego. His professors had only a vague inkling that things weren't 100% OK, but no suspicion strong enough to affect Tom's grades.

It was much clearer to Sally and the kids -- Sam hadn't talked to the kids in weeks; they were asleep when he got home and not awake when he left, and he lost interest in sex. Sally started divorce proceedings, which culminated the day after Sam graduated at the top of his class.

Sure, Sally could have talked to Sam's professors or to the dean; she could have confided in some other wives and they could have ganged up on Sam. I'm not saying Sally was blameless here, only that Sam's bad behavior was a big factor in what happened to him.

But it's not usually so clear-cut

I was going to write about a couple of specific unresolved situations, but perhaps it's best to mention a few principles.

• A woman takes big risks when she marries a man; a man may be called upon to make big sacrifices when he marries a woman, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:25-30. If they attend a church where the building has stairs but no elevator nor ramps, and the wife becomes crippled one day through accident or disease, then the husband must be willing to attend another place of worship, so that they can go together. If the wife finds one day that she cannot stand their church, for a reasonable cause, the husband must be willing to worship elsewhere, as in the wheelchair case. (Assuming, of course, this doesn't happen time after time....)
  
  
• A man's got to do what a man's got to do, to coin a phrase. Bible teachers tell us that Abraham erred by listening to Sarah (Genesis 16:1-2); he probably would have done well to consult the Lord first. Solomon's wives led him astray (1 Kings 11:3-6); he should have listened to God. So if a husband has ministry gifts and passions, if the Lord is calling him to something and his wife objects, he has to find a way to answer his calling in consideration of his wife. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:32-34 that when we get married our interests are divided. He's not saying that a man should ignore his wife, but as Piper wrote:

  Wives and husbands are second priorities, not first. Christ is first. Marriage is for making much of him.

  Suppose a man has a gift of using his hands and tools to help those in need of home repairs. When he repairs things or improves their function, as Eric Liddell supposedly said, he "feel[s] His pleasure."
  
  Terrific! But his wife wants him home for dinner. The husband therefore should work with his wife and decide how to exercise his gifts and answer his calling to ministry, while not neglecting his call to be her husband. Can he do some of this work after supper, or on Saturdays -- though that's less convenient for him? Is she willing to stay her objection one evening every other week? One evening a month?

I don't have this all wired myself

Is it presumptuous to say that I feel these essays are part of my calling? I started this one Friday, and it was on my mind when I woke up Saturday morning. But it was nearly midnight Sunday (almost Monday morning) before I spent any more time on it. You may not believe this, but I sometimes have disagreements with the lovely Carol on this very topic: how much time I spend writing! So we need to work this out.

A passion tip for husbands

Gentlemen, here's a way to increase the passion (I'm talking human biology here) in your marriage. It only takes ten seconds, and you don't have to say a word.

Sound too good to be true? After I heard it at last weekend's marriage seminar, I just about slapped my forehead. "Duh!" I thought.

Here's how it works. Say you're headed into the kitchen for a cold drink. Or whatever. Your wife is in there doing something -- washing dishes, say. (It should be something where she isn't moving around much.) (No, I'm not going to tell you to take over for her -- but that might be good for another time.)

Walk up to her from behind (don't sneak up on her!), put your hands on her shoulders (ONLY her shoulders), lean forward, and put your right cheek next to her left -- or her right, your left. Squeeze her shoulders gently a few times (five would be too many).

After about ten seconds have elapsed from the first touch on her shoulders, gently release her and walk away. Say nothing. Go get your beer or coffee or lemonade or whatever. And wait at least an hour before repeating this whole thing.

This also works well if she's at her computer. Really, don't say anything to disturb whatever she's doing -- just a gentle touch, your cheek to hers, and after about 10 seconds, let go and leave. Just walk away.

NOTE: Don't step away if she decides to lean back into you. Or if she turns around and presses her lips onto yours. Or if she rips your shirt off -- but in that case, you really didn't need this tip, right?