Another Year Gone?

In checking the calendar, I’m surprised to see that today is the second anniversary of my first post of this blog. It gives me an opportunity to reflect on what, if anything, I’ve done in my second year.

In coming into 2016, I did make a decision about the content of the blog. When I was flush with the excitement of sitting down to a laptop and flinging thoughts out at the world, …, well, I admit it. I let myself run all over the lot. I started posting about one of my favorite things in life, old movies. I posted about favorite films, favorite actors, and even favorite character actors, the ones you see and say, “Oh, yeah, I remember him/her!”

“If You Loved Me/Accept Me”

(In this post, I use abbreviations for common terms; see sidebar.)

 

In Bad Teaching: “As Christ Loved The Church”, I wrote about how the Church has screwed up Paul’s teaching on LYWLCLTC™, and I think I demonstrated that what passes for marital advice today based Eph. 5:25-31 is just so much codswallop.

Yes, husbands are enjoined to love their wives “as Christ loved the Church,” but this biblical statement has been heated in the fervid minds of teachers and shaped into a cudgel with which to browbeat husbands into a meek submission to wife and children in the name of Christ. Husbands are enjoined to be more Christian than Christ ever was.

And recently, I have come across a couple of statements by husbands who tell of this same teaching appearing in yet another guise in their lives.

And,… I’m Back!

Back in May, I wrote that I was taking time off from my blog in order to work on a book project for my 88-year-old mother. For several years now, when Mom and I have been talking on the phone, I’ve also had a laptop fired up, and I started to write down all the different stories that she would tell, as we reminisced about my late Dad, and the places we lived.

Finally, with a plethora of recollections, I began the task of arranging and writing Mom’s stories into a story of our family. It took a lot of work and writing and editing, but I fashioned the stories into chapters that became a timeline of  our family’s history. Going through old photos and slides, and using today’s technology, I was able to create files of text and pix that I hoped would make my Mom both proud and happy.

My son, who works for a printing company in Tennessee, took the files and worked on them, doing the layout work of getting them ready for final printing, set the final product in the company’s queue. Yesterday, the labor of love of three generations, Grandmother, Son and Grandson, arrived on my doorstep.

Mom and Dad met in September of 1947; Dad died in May of 2007. Recollections of a Storyteller is my attempt to pay tribute to a love that lasted nearly 60 years.

~ ~ ~

I figure I have about a week of mailing books to family and friends; with that, my project will be finished, and I can return to my blog. For good or ill…. 🙂

CSL

A Parable For Divorce?

It should come as no surprise that I follow several marriage bloggers on Twitter and via email notification. After all, I am a marriage blogger, and it’s always good to hear what others are saying. (And there is always a good chance that something I read will trigger an idea or two for me to write about, so it’s a win-win for me.)

In doing this, though, I find that I am something of the oddball when it comes to one topic, not necessarily in agreement with the accepted wisdom that these bloggers share. Now, because these writers are all great writers, speakers and teachers and I esteem their wisdom highly, I can’t fault them for hewing to the accepted party line on the importance of marriage and the evils of divorce. After all, it’s Christian orthodoxy, and even atheist Michelle Weiner-Davis, of Divorce Busting, is on board.

And yet, like so many of the teachings I have been given down through the years, I am finding that an absolutist stance is untenable. While many want to see marriage as an untouchable icon, I believe that scripture doesn’t back up our attempts to deify it.

Curing vs. Healing, part 2

In my post Curing vs. Healing, I discussed a fourth possible source for marital disconnect (separate from TAG), that of your own unintentional actions causing hurt and damage in the relationship. I made the recommendation that you read Chris Taylor’s (of Forgiven Wife) guest post, A Wife’s Heart, and our following discussion in order to learn how unintentional actions can cause rifts in a marriage.

That said, I want to offer a couple of caveats. Yes, if you discover that you are a source for the disconnect in your relationship, do make an effort to heal the rift. However, do not take on a burden that is not yours; own your actions, not her excuses.