Marriage, that under-rated institution…

As Liz Taylor is quoted as saying, "Marriage is something you only do seven or eight times in a lifetime, so you should take it seriously…."

 

In western culture, it’s not very manly to talk about love and marriage.  Those are sappy topics for the weak at heart and the simple.  Better to talk about sports, politics, conflicts, conquests… so, if I am weak at heart and simple, so be it!

 

19 years ago I got married.  I was too young to know what love was, and so I married.  We were both too young.  I expected it to last without investing anything into it.  I naively expected to benefit from it without contributing to it.

 

14 years later, after that marriage dissolved, I went through a spiritual journey of despair, guilt, self-analysis, discovery, and maturity.  I finally came to terms with being single and content.  Then, completely unexpectedly, I met the most amazing woman I had ever met in my life.  Almost from the beginning, I was certain we were destined to be with each other for the rest of our lives.  I didn’t know how (we live 10 hours from each other), or when (we both share custody of our respective kids), but I knew God intended us for one another.

 

I used to hear people talk about this sort of confidence, and I would wonder what they meant.  Now, I was experiencing it, and I understood.  I knew that the intervening years of reflection and my lessons in contentment had prepared me to give of myself to a relationship for which I would otherwise have been unprepared – even unable to do so.  I knew that the crucible of self-doubt and the overwhelming sense of failure in the wake of a previously destroyed marriage had served to refine me and had prepared me to invest myself in a relationship with this amazing woman in a way heretofore foreign to me.

 

In point of fact, investing in a relationship is foreign.  It is unnatural, as our natural inclination is to be self-absorbed.

 

In two weeks, I will marry this amazing woman.  Then, in a few short months, I will set off for the second military deployment of my career.  During World War II, thousands of men and women waited patiently for each other as their nation called on them to sacrifice for a greater good.  They waited for years, and afterward most of them remained together for decade upon decade… until only death could part them.

 

Jacob waited an incredible 14 years to marry the woman he loved (after Rachel’s father tricked him into marrying his other daughter first…).

 

Today we live in a culture that horribly under-values marriage, burdens it with unrealistic expectations, insists on bolting at the slightest promise of inconvenience.  50 years ago, the Great Depression and two World Wars within a matter of two decades prepared a generation of people to understand the values of sacrifice, loyalty, and the commitment of a daily investment in renewing love; not resting in the complacency of taking each other for granted.

 

What my fiancé and I share is greater than common interests and values; we share a mutual desire to give.  That giving is the life-blood of any truly healthy relationship.  The more I give, the more she gives right back.  And the more she gives, the greater my desire to give to her.

 

While I serve my country, I know that my sweet bride will patiently await my return; I cherish the knowledge, and know just how unusual that is, and how lucky I am.  I know that however many or few our years together on this earth, we share a hope to spend an eternity together afterwards.  Liz Taylor my become bored with her current partner… and the next….

 

As for me, I’m planning to keep this one not only for this lifetime, but the next as well.  Like Jacob, I know a good thing when I see it.

 

I Cor 13

Your help needed!

Friends,

 

Two dear ladies I know, one of whom I’ve known since my youth, are engaged in the most noble of enterprises.  But they need your help.

 

Tanya serves as the Executive Director of the American Foundation for Children with AIDS (AFCA), and Sarah just recently joined AFCA as their eBay Store Manager.  AFCA’s mission is to improve the lives of children and youth struggling with the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic by providing cost-effective relief, services, medical and social support, education and advocacy to help these victims achieve their full life potential.

 

One of the ways that AFCA can earn money for the foundation is by utilizing eBay’s no-fee policy for non-profit businesses.  By doing so, AFCA is able to collect 100% of the profit.  It was for this reason that Sarah was brought on-board to help the foundation by serving as the manager for their online eBay store. 

 

Sarah recently sent out this request, which I gladly pass along to you:

 

…My reason for writing is simple:  I’m wondering whether you may have things around your home that you would be willing to donate to AFCA for us to sell on eBay?  If you are familiar with eBay, you may already know that the possibilities for selling are almost limitless!  Below are a few ideas of things you may have to donate…

 

§    Did you receive a gift for Christmas that you just know you’ll probably never use?  Perhaps it’s still in its original packaging?  Send it our way!

§    Are you an empty-nester who is looking to clear out all the “stuff” that your family accumulated over the years?

§    Maybe you’re not an empty-nester yet but your kids have outgrown the myriad of toys that you still have around the house…

§    Or, maybe you don’t fall into any of the above categories but you’re still like Jason and me who, even though we’ve only been married for 7 years, are still amazed at the amount of “stuff” we’ve accumulated!

 

These ideas just skim the surface of the possibilities that are there for AFCA to earn money using eBay’s services.

 

Of course, any donation you make to AFCA could be verified by a receipt for tax-exemption purposes.

 

So, if you’re looking for a way to get rid of a few things in your home, please contact me and I’ll be happy to make arrangements with you.

 

Thank you in advance for your help. 

 

Sincerely,

Sarah Ladner

eBay Store Manager

 

If you’d like more information about AFCA, please visit their website at www.helpchildrenwithaids.org.  Or, let Sarah know and she’ll be happy to provide you with a brochure.

 

American Foundation for Children with AIDS

Headquarters: 769 Grant Street, Lawrence, KS 66044

Main Office: 6221 Blue Grass Avenue, Harrisburg, PA 17112

Phone: 888.683.8323 • www.helpchildrenwithaids.org • sladner@helpchildrenwithaids.org

 

I wasn’t able to attach the sheet Sarah sent me that provides more detail.  If you’d like me to email it to you separately, contact me privately, provide me with an email address and I’ll send it to you.  If you have an item you’d like to give that’s not mentioned on the sheet, please contact me and I’ll be happy to discuss it with you.

 

Thank you in advance for your generous donations to this important work!

 Tim

Another Christmas Story

I had heard this story before, and found it both humbling and gratifying to know that in the midst of evil the light of good shines brightest.  In the interest of full disclosure, I AM supporting this candidate for President.  Here is his Christmas story:

My Christmas Story

As a POW, my captors would tie my arms behind my back and then loop the rope around my neck and ankles so that my head was pulled down between my knees. I was often left like that throughout the night.

One night a guard came into my cell. He put his finger to his lips signaling for me to be quiet, and then loosened my ropes to relieve my pain. The next morning, when his shift ended, the guard returned and retightened the ropes, never saying a word to me.

A month or so later, on Christmas Day, I was standing in the dirt courtyard when I saw that same guard approach me. He walked up and stood silently next to me, not looking or smiling at me.

After a few moments had passed, he rather nonchalantly used his sandaled foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas, even in the darkness of a Vietnamese prison camp. After a minute or two, he rubbed it out and walked away.

That guard was my Good Samaritan. I will never forget that man and I will never forget that moment. And I will never forget that, no matter where you are, no matter how difficult the circumstances, there will always be someone who will pick you up and carry you.

May you and your family have a blessed Christmas and Happy Holidays,

John McCain

www.JohnMcCain.com

 

Wishing all a Blessed Christmas

A Christmas Story unfolds

 

You know those sappy Christmas stories that start to circulate this time of year; the one about the little boy in tattered clothes who walks into a flower shop with a handful of change and asks how much for a dozen roses for his mother, and the clerk who takes pity and tells him he has just enough, and then sees him run off to the cemetery to lay them at a tombstone….

 

…or the story I’ve posted on this site related by John Henry Faulk Christmas Story about a cold Texas Christmas and a barefoot boy clutching an orange just as excited as a boy could be about the “most wonderfullest Christmas in the whole New-nited States of America….”

 

I always suspected those stories were skillfully imagined rather than based on reality, but I could be wrong.

 

I’d like to tell you a true Christmas story that is even now unfolding.  This story begins just the other day in a middle school in a town in Maine.

 

Yesterday evening I was driving home from work and (as I am wont to do) I phoned my fiancé, “S”.  She informed me that she was gracing an art supply / hobby shop.  She further informed me that she was selecting a prize for the winner of a competition over which she had presided earlier in the day.

 

Some background:  The woman I love is a sixth grade teacher, and advisor to the middle school newspaper.  The paper ran a competition for best artwork depicting a winter scene, which was won by a young lady of amazing talent who chose a horse in a field as her subject.

 

The girl was called down to “S”’s classroom to be informed that she’d won the competition.  The prize, it had been decided, would be art supplies.  The child was asked what sort of art supplies she’d prefer (water colors and brushes, pencils, markers, etc.).

 

She didn’t know.  You see, while she possesses a great deal of innate talent, she has not had much experience plying her skills, so she had no point of reference, and so was naturally unsure.  “S” suggested she take some time to think about what she’d like and report back once she’d decided.

 

At the end of the day, she approached the newspaper advisor and haltingly made her request.  Would it be okay, she asked, if instead of art supplies, she could have a model car for her brother, since that’s what he wants for Christmas?  Apparently, she was not expecting much of a Christmas this year, and wanted to make sure her brother wasn’t disappointed.

 

At this point in the story, my dear “S”. asked me if I was still on the phone, because I wasn’t responding.  It’s hard to talk when you have a sizeable lump in your throat.  Alas, I was succumbing to emotional involvement in the story.

 

Of course, it doesn’t end there.  “S”, in her typical style, took it upon herself to spend her own money to secure the model car, adding it to the previously agreed-upon prize, carefully wrapping them both to give to the contest-winner today.

 

I love that woman.

 

I’ll keep you posted as this tale continues to unfold.

 

Oh… and… Merry Christmas – from both of us.

(Santa’s helper)

Immigration, Materialism, Wealth, Brotherhood

Introduction:  I write to challenge.  I don’t expect everyone to agree with me.  I do expect people to pause and think about what they hold dear in their own lives.  I notice that people who have never been challenged; whether economically, or by losing their health, losing a loved one… take an awful lot for granted.

 

I’ve suggested to both of my children that when the time is right, I’d rather they spent a year overseas in a third-world country helping others than beginning college in some American fishbowl.  Growing up among nomadic people who had few material possessions has taught me much about the importance of family, hospitality, helping the less-fortunate regardless of how much or little I have, and of being grateful.

 

So here’s what’s on my mind today:

 

I’ve heard arguments of all kinds on the immigration debate.  I understand the economic arguments (on both sides).  As far as I’m concerned, they cancel each other out.  Then there are the racial arguments.  Oh, you probably won’t hear someone frame it that way, but so far, the people I’ve heard argue against illegal immigration quickly slide into arguments against immigration on a broader scale, and suddenly the discussion becomes one about ‘Mexicans’, ‘Guatemalans’, or Spanish-speakers in general from ‘south of the border’.

 

Let’s call a spade a spade.  I hear an awful lot of White Anglo-Saxon rednecks who would otherwise call themselves ‘Christians’ use racial slurs against Latinos, make fun of their accents, stereotype their food, living conditions, personal hygiene habits, etc.

 

This is an issue about which I used to not feel strongly, but because of the abhorrent things I continue to hear, am quickly developing an aversion to most of the ‘anti-immigration’ arguments I hear from a visceral level.

 

Granted, I used the term ‘anti-immigration’ instead of ‘anti-illegal-immigration’.

 

One problem I have with the entire argument is that illegal immigration can be largely blamed on a ridiculous system that actually encourages it.  Do I think people should be rewarded for breaking the law?  Of course not.  Do I think American jobs need to be protected?  Building a higher wall is not going to protect American jobs any more than raising tariffs on certain industries, and anyone who watched GM, Ford & Chevy during the ’80′s knows how they squandered that.

 

Americans need to be less dependent on ‘jobs’ and need to relearn how to be self-reliant.  100 years ago, this nation was made up of people who appreciated the smallest blessings, uttered phrases like ‘waste not, want not’, and ‘a penny saved is a penny earned’.

 

Today, we utter words like ‘entitlement’, and phrases like, ‘I’ll sue’.  Asked the best ways to develop wealth, average Americans answer with one of the following means:  Winning the lottery, inheriting a large sum from a relative, or winning a lawsuit.

 

Here’s one of my favorite arguments:  "These people should have to go through the legal process to become citizens."  This from people who had the luxury of being born American citizens, who did nothing more than exit their mothers’ wombs on American soil.  Do you have any idea what ludicrous loopholes we require of people to become citizens?  Forget our neighbors south of the border for a moment – consider loyal translaters in Iraq who risk their lives and the lives of their families daily, and once they’re targeted by Al Qaida in Iraq or another terrorist group have to flee to Jordan or Syria rather than being able to rely on the US State Department to protect them.  50 visas per year.  That’s what we offer.  And we expect Iraqis to jump at the chance to help us?  Right.

 

I have a tremendous amount of respect for someone who risks his very life to cross a border for the chance to make his family’s life marginally better, and at the same time actually pays the IRS taxes on the illegal money he earns working 12 hour days 7 days a week while sharing meager housing with a dozen other illegals who spend their days harvesting crops at wages that actually allow you to buy fresh produce at a price you can afford.

 

Here’s another argument I love:  "The thing I can’t stand is that they don’t learn the language."  This is usually uttered by the very same people who can’t put together a sentence in English to save their lives.  I work in an environment that is as homogeneous as it gets – not one minority in the place.  I hear these arguments daily.  I also don’t have to dig very deep to find examples of English grammar gone wrong.  This hypocritical argument is just one of many that raise my ire.

 

I’m probably the world’s worst speller (that’s why I use ‘spell check’.  In this posting alone, I found three spelling errors.  So I’m not trying to put my fellow workers down – only pointing out the hypocrisy of being offended because someone is having difficulty learning English as a second language, when they have not even come close to mastering it as a first language!

 

I’m perfectly willing to hear people offer arguments who disagree – please just do yourself the favor of checking the facts and basing your arguments on solid ground, and not racial stereotypes.  You will get farther with me if you’re trying to convince me of the validity of your point of view.

 

A brother just returned from a missions trip to Nicaragua.  His impression was summed up in one sentence: “We are so rich compared to those people!”, he realized.  “They have so little, but compared to us, they are so committed to helping their neighbors who are even more poor than they!”

 What are you committed to?  Keeping up with the Joneses?  Materialism?  What’s your god?  When did our fellow man become less important than our individual pursuit of wealth?

Happy Thanksgiving

Dreading the annual required family gathering?  Not looking forward to threading through the crowd of annoying family members you pride yourself on being able to avoid the rest of the year?

 

Developing a headache over the very thought of entertaining whiny, bored, electronics-addicted kids you’d just as soon send off to some boot camp?

 

We should all be so lucky.

 

Thank you to all the men and women who put their lives on the line every day.  You may not agree with the policies that place them in danger.  Chances are they don’t necessarily agree with them either.

 

But while civilians enjoy the luxury of pontificating over policy, there are a few, special people who believe in old virtues like loyalty, selfless service, honor, and duty, and who don’t just talk about them, but put them into action.

 

I’m thankful for people who, instead of arguing why our troops should be deployed, instead go.  I’m thankful for people who walk the walk, and leave talking the talk for others to do.

 

I’m thankful for people who can disagree passionately about foreign policy, politics, religion, and whose city boasts the best NFL team, and then suit up and have each others’ sixes without any question about why they’re doing what they do.

 

To all my brothers and sisters putting it all out on the line, I salute and thank you.

 

Judgment, hunger, and compassion

What kind of person are you?  Are you a ‘no mercy’, ‘law and order’ type?  Or are you a ‘bleeding heart’, ‘give ‘em another chance’ type?

Maybe your life experience has something to do with where you fall on that continuum.

There’s an old Jewish proverb: “He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.”  The meaning is that when things get tough, certain options seem much more appetizing than when there is plenty.  While there are exceptions, desperate people have been known to take desperate measures – Maslow recognized this, and alluded to it in his hierarchy of needs.

Jesus of Nazareth actually referenced hunger and, apparently, situational ethics when he defended himself and his disciples against the Pharisees’ accusations that he was breaking their Shabbat laws by eating grain as they walked through the fields on a Saturday.  He rhetorically asked them if they hadn’t heard of King David and his troops eating the consecrated bread at the Temple in Jerusalem (against Mosaic law) when they had been on the run and hungry.

It’s imperative to recognize the difference between ethical values and poorly written legislation; not that I’m advocating that it’s ethical to break the law today, but this was exactly Jesus’ point as he recognized that the Pharisaical laws of the times were largely oppressive, and were themselves unethical.

It’s easy to judge others when we have the luxury to do so.  I’ve noticed a marked difference in the level of compassion between people who have tasted ‘hunger’, and those who haven’t.

Even if we’re not talking about an unethical law, the prescribed punishment might be unnecessarily draconian, and therefore unethical.

For example, the over-reaching, yet popular "Three strikes" laws that were passed in state after state in the ’80′s and ’90′s placed untold thousands in prisons arbitrarily who were non-violent, and for whom restitution or other punishments would have been far more appropriate.  Ironically, here in Pennsylvania, one of the loudest proponents of such legislation in 1988 was then-Lackawanna County Prosecutor Ernie Preate, who was running successfully for State Attorney General.  12 years later I had the opportunity to ask him, as an ex-convict, how he had changed from the fiery prosecutor he had once been.  His answer was simple:  "I’m a much more compassionate person today."

Matthew 7:1-5