It is that time of year again folks! That time of year when everyone gathers together with beloved friends and family members to share in a great bounty of loving kindness and generosity. It is that time of year when we strive to think the best of people and treat everyone with fairness and compassion. It is that time of year where nigh everyone is celebrating some Holiday or another, and people are full to bursting with excitement and anticipation. There is so much love, thoughtfulness, and goodwill toward men floating around the air it is almost overwhelming!
Isn't it wonderful how you can go out shopping and jovially wish someone a Merry Christmas just to have them glare at you and return a bitter sounding "Happy Holidays"? I can't tell you how much I love seeing my Facebook news feed exploding with debates over a Louisiana Duck Hunting hillbilly's personal opinions. The best part of those debates though is that they consist of a lot of mud slinging and insulting of the opposition. I mean, I was afraid I was going to start missing all the political warfare and vicious slander from last year's presidential debates, but thankfully Phil's statement seems to have sparked enough controversy to keep that kind of heated "debate" going during this generous and gift giving season.
Ah, can you smell that *deep breath* that's the smell of peace on earth and goodwill toward men; the smell of yet another special season being turned into a battleground for personal grudges and a ravenous desire for controversy.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have some pretty strong feelings about politics and religion (as you've probably seen in my other posts), and I'm not suggesting anyone lay aside their beliefs and look away for the sake of us all just getting along. I am the other of "The Opinion Section" after all, and I hold to the principle that if you believe in something you should fight for it. If you honestly feel like the Duck Dynasty vs. A&E issue is something worth beating to death over the internet through inconsiderate comments about your opponent and whining over the bigotry/hostility of the world then go for it.
Far be it from me to rain on your parade.
What frustrates me is something that everyone in every party of every current debate seems to be guilty of (including myself). People establish a personal opinion on a topic like wishing Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays or on freedom of a TV Celebrity to make a racial slur, and that's all fine and good. It really is a good thing to have an opinion on the issues of the day, but what I find to be utterly ridiculous is how passionately and yet simultaneously irrationally people drive their opinions forward while beating senseless the opposing opinion.
I'm a Christian, I'm a confessional conservative Lutheran who believes that Christmas should be a celebration of the Nativity of our Lord and Savior, and so as we approach the twelve days of Christmas I'm going to happily wish people "Merry Christmas!" because I think that something like the Son of God coming down to earth as an infant human for the sake of growing, living, and dying for the forgiveness of our sins is something worth celebrating and sharing. Maybe you aren't Christian, maybe you don't believe any of that stuff I just said. If you don't we clearly have a pretty major disagreement, but I can respect that. Despite what some people might think, I am not trying to shove my religious beliefs down the throats of every atheist, Jewish, and Islamic person in the world. However, neither am I on a crusade to keep the Christ in CHRISTmas and ensure that the whole world know that the only think worth celebrating and thinking about in the month of December is the birth of our Lord.
See, while I celebrate Christmas the way I do because I am Christian, I am not ignorant of the fact that other people celebrate the month of December for other reasons and I am not not going hold that against them. The Fourth of July isn't a religious holiday and has absolutely nothing to do with my religious beliefs, but I have no problem celebrating that occasion and wishing others a Happy Independence day. If someone from another country (Britain for example) comes to the States and I happen to see them on the 4th of July, and I wish them a Happy Fourth, I am not trying to shove my political stance and beliefs of my nation down their throats and force them to start a revolution in their country for the sake of founding a Democratic Republic. Likewise, if someone wishes me a Happy Holidays or a Happy Hanukkah, I am not going to take offense and rage at them about destroying the meaning of the Christmas season. They are celebrate their own holiday, they are celebrating their own thing and even though that thing isn't my thing, I have no reason to oppose them celebrating. If anything, I should be happy that they have a reason to celebrate! The fact that other people don't celebrate the birth of Christ in no way endangers Christmas or the fate of Christianity itself.
Instead, I will smile and be happy when someone returns my "Merry Christmas" with another "Merry Christmas" because they are someone who is sharing my own joy, but if someone wishes my a "Happy Holidays" or "Happy Hanukkah," I will return the same greeting, because I truly hope that they will enjoy their celebration as much as I will enjoy mine. These greetings are not about taking a side, or forwarding the cause of your particular religion/holiday, but about sharing each others' joy, appreciation, and celebration of the season and everything that is happening. If you are a Christian, there is no reason for you to think that people referring to Christmas as "The Holidays" is going to somehow undo Jesus's birth, and if you are an atheist you shouldn't feel like someone wishing you a "Merry Christmas" is going to result in a god appearing who will inevitably mess up your science.
Just share the spirit of community and happiness that surrounds a holiday, any holiday, and try not to make something that should be a happy occasion into a source of contention and rivalry.
Granted, I am greatly to blame for picking fights where fights aren't necessary and for overreacting to silly things, but I acknowledge that I am acting wrongly, foolishly, and pointlessly when I do that. I achieve nothing, and potentially inure quite a lot.
I think, at the heart of the problem, humanity seems to feel an urge to drift towards conflict and controversy. We aren't really content with the idea of peace on earth and goodwill toward men. I mean, we can't even get along at family holiday gatherings, how are we supposed to get along with the entire rest of the world?!?! If something of a controversial nature springs up you only have to sit back and wait for the masses to spring upon it like ravenous wolves starving for a good bit of juicy controversy. Those people on Facebook who spam their own walls with memes about the same issue over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again almost have to be passing out with giddy excitement when something like the Duck Dynasty issue emerges. "At last!" they say "I can once again lock myself into mortal combat with the great enemy (insert political or religious affiliation here) and demonstrate my superior intelligence, wisdom, and righteousness by insulting and belittling them till the cows come home!"
Since starting college, I have a much wider variety of political and religious beliefs scattered amongst my Facebook friends. Now, when some "news worthy" event occurs, I get to see both sides of the argument begin to swell within my news feed, and the thing that really saddens me is that I see a very similar approach being taken on both of the sides. Whether or not I agree with them, it seems like everyone is intent to contribute the most shocking and antagonistic posts to their cause for the sake of seeing how people will react and baiting them into an argument. I see blog posts, I see memes, and I see comments that come out of the blue with no rational evidence supporting them that ultimately boil down to "I disagree with you and you are a complete and utter moron for having that opinion of yours."
After the Duck Dynasty controversy started spilling out all over Facebook and I hear multiple variations of the story, I went ahead and looked up what Phil actually said to cause such an uproar. I realized several things as I read the quotes from his interview. 1) Phil is not a very tactful or eloquent person, 2) some of the things he said actually did seem rather offensive 3) I agreed with his overall opinion and 4) the obsession over what he said is entirely unwarranted.
Now, I'm not gay, I'm not black, and I am not supportive of homosexuality by any stretch of the imagination, but homosexual people are still people and I can totally see how the gay community would be offended and irritated by his comments. I can also see how the black community would be fairly miffed, and it seems like his comments about slavery were pretty ignorant (although they certainly didn't seem malicious). What doesn't make sense is how violently people responded to his comments, and how violently people responded to the violent response! I get that if you're gay or you great-grandfather was an abused slave you'd have a bone to pick with Phil, but there is absolutely no reason to get the dude fired and call for his public humiliation and downfall. At the same time, if the liberals are going to go nuts and lose their heads over something as inconsequential as one man's personal opinions (one man who realistically has no power or political influence), then what do you really hope to gain by entering the battlefield guns blazing?
Sure, Phil is entirely entitled to his own personal opinion. Sure, what he said was said in a private interview in response to a question. Sure, his opposition is being hypocritical and unfair because they say just as bad things about red necks and hillbillies, but fighting fire with fire accomplishes nothing and just puts you on the same level as the people you are fighting with (same goes for you liberals).
I feel like our society, as a whole, has no concept of agreeing to disagree. I feel like everyone is under the impression that not fighting to the death for the truth will resulting that truth no longer being true, when in fact the truth is not dependent on anyone's personal opinion, regardless of how many anyones there are. If you believe that Phil's comments were those of a bigot, and that he sorely misunderstands both slavery and homosexuals, than ignore him as an ignorant and insensitive southern duck hunter and move on with your life assured by the fact that his comments can never change the truth. If you believe that Jesus Christ was both God and Man, born of the Virgin Mary for our sakes, then don't get your knickers in a knot over people celebrating other things because they can't change what Christ has done for you!
There are things worth fighting for. There are things worth dying for.
A person's holiday greeting and the personal opinions of a celebrity don't fall into either of those categories.
We all make mistakes. We all get carried away, and I do so on a daily basis. There is always the temptation to overreact and take up arms, especially for a sensitive issue, but ultimately that isn't excuse. When you are struck, turn the other cheek and rest assured that no earthly prince can ever actually harm you.
I grew up being homeschooled (and I'll never regret that), and in the homeschool community we tend to kind of look down on the publicly educated. I grew up conservative (and I remain that way), and in the conservative community we tend to look down on the liberal. I grew up Christian (and I remain that way), and in the Christian community we tend to look down on every other denomination on top of every non-Christian. I continue to hold onto the values and beliefs I grew up with, but since entering the secular university setting I have realized more that your education, your political stance, and your religious beliefs don't change the fact that you are a human being for whom Christ suffered and died upon the cross, and in a world where we are all sinful human beings wrought with the disease of death, none of us has the right to look down on anyone. All men were created equal under God, and whether or not we disagree with each other doesn't change that.
Next time someone says or does something you don't like, remember that a person's a person no matter how small and everyone deserves your respect regardless of whether or not that deserves you support and consent.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and God Bless.
Pax
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
The Love, Relationships, and Controversy Series Part IV: Couples
Now that it is more than a week past when I originally planned on posting this, I am finally getting around to typing out the last of my posts in this series. Thus far I've talked about the way we develop friendships and express love, the kinds of love and friendship between men, and the kinds of non-romantic kinds of love and friendship between people of different genders. At last it has come time for me to write about what we all typically think of when we think of love and relationships.
Within my personal social circles there are very few topics discussed and debated quite as much as that of relationships and how they should be handled, viewed, carried out, introduced, etc. etc. It is a topic that people tend to be both passionate and biased toward, and one where there is a great reluctance to listen to any contrary pieces of advice or suggestions from anyone else because either A) there is no way anyone else could ever understand what they are thinking or B) they have enough experience under the belt and have studied relationships enough that they clearly know better than anyone else how relationships should function. It is a topic where the pendulum of opinion seems to either swing toward the extreme of absolute slackness and freedom within a romantic relationship to the extreme of their being only one proper way for every relationship ever to be handled.
I am going to try and walk the line between those tempting extremes and lay out what I have observed, experienced, think, and feel about the whole subject in a way that you can at least appreciate if not agree with. The key thing to understand when thinking about relationships of a more romantic nature is that, while there are certainly truths and realities about human nature that apply to pretty much the entire human race, everyone is different and when you start putting two people together, an even more unique situation occurs. It absolutely a good idea, in my opinion, to draw upon past experiences and knowledge you have gathered in your own relationships and the relationships of friends/siblings/children/parents etc, but always try to keep in mind that the circumstances and nature of every relationship is going to vary. This is something I tend to have trouble remembering myself, but I encourage you all, as I divulge my personal opinions, to take my words with a grain of salt and understand that I am not trying to lay down an unwavering ultimatum.
No, on with the show...
Because there is a kind of natural chronological progression for romantic relationships between the interest being sparked and the knot being tied, I figure it makes the most sense to start at the beginning and conclude with the ending.
I know it sounds a little bit cheesy (w are talking about romantic love here), but your future spouse should be your best friend, and I think every romantic relationship should be founded on a strong friendship. Feelings and twitterpation are all fine and good, but they aren't going to stand the test of time all on their own. Before you even consider entering into a more serious, romance orientated relationship with someone, you should a friendship already established and a friendship based on common interests and beliefs. Your significant other should be someone who believes the same foundational principles as you when it comes things like politics and especially religion. While it is entirely possible for relationships between people of different political stances and faiths to work out, I don't see how that could ever be easy and I've seen several scenarios where it makes things rough for both the couple and their children. If you think about it, your religious faith is a pretty massively important thing, and if you really believe the teachings of your religion that you have to hold those teachings above your personal feelings for another person. If you can't have common ground on issues like then you are asking for trials and troubles ahead.
Long term, functional relationships are going to need some kind of common ground to stand on when the going gets rough and the rough gets going, because real life likes to throw a lot of curve balls our way, and during those times we tend to get depressed, frustrated, angry, and confused and if you are in a relationship with someone where your passionate feelings and emotion based love for them is what you are depending on for success, that depression, frustration, and anger is going to override your twitterpation and things are going to go south pretty quickly. (No offense Texas.)
Of course, this is all assuming you are looking at relationships being a long term investment in the first place. For me, when you enter in a romantic relationship with another person and become "an item" you are making a decision to work towards something. These relationships aren't stationary things that exist in some kind of limbo. The longer you are in a relationship, the more difficulties and temptations you are going to face, and if you don't have some kind of goal or purpose to which you are working, things are going to get messy. Regardless of how you operate your boyfriend/girlfriend experience, I firmly believe that every romantic relationship should be founded on the purpose of either moving towards marriage or determining that your boyfriend/girlfriend isn't someone you could marry. If you reach the latter conclusion you should back out and end the thing, because otherwise you are committing more and more of yourself and your time into something that is going to escalate without ever having a way to vent or focus that escalation.
I have heard the argument that you have to date a variety of people, or enter into open ended relationships because otherwise you don't have any way of finding out whether or not someone is "the right person" or not. There appears to be this idea that it is only through expressing outward romantic affection, dedicating vast amounts of time to a specific person, and potentially going as far as living with/sleeping with someone are you able to determine whether or not they are someone you could marry and love for the duration of your life. I would like to propose that this way of thinking is utter nonsense.
Firstly, if you are getting to know someone as a close friend like I have already suggested as being important for a relationship to work well, than you should know that person pretty well already before you ever enter into a relationship with them. When you are in dating/courting someone you do learn things about them that you don't in regular routine interactions, but when it comes to figuring out whether or not someone is the kind of person you could spend your life with, it is the day to day routine activities that are most likely to make or break the deal. How someone handles stress/frustration/anger disappointment, how someone treats other people of your gender, how someone treats their parents and siblings, and how someone juggles their responsibilities are all things that you can learn pretty easily without ever moving in with them. These things, along the previously mentioned political and religious beliefs, are significant traits and points of interest about someone that you find out about just by being close friends.
Secondly, you don't exactly "figure out" whether or not someone is a person you can love and dedicate your life to. Twitterpation and infatuation are all fine and dandy, but the lightheaded thoughts and feelings you experience about that special person early on in a relationship aren't going to last indefinitely. so it isn't like you've found "the right person" as soon as your heart starts fluttering. The kind of love that is associated with couples is the kind of love that you chose. You make the individual choice to personally nurture and grow the relationship between yourself and another person, and from that comes the kind of lifelong, steadfast, loving relationships that we see in couples celebrating their 40th, 50th, 60th, and greater wedding anniversaries. It is true that when you are in a relationship with someone before marriage you should be looking for evidence that you two will be able to function as a couple later on in life, as well as reasons to why you wouldn't make a good married couples (if you find those you need to address them or end the relationship), but ultimately you have to choose whether or not that relationship is going to work and then you make it work.
Relationships are growing and changing things, and like and growing thing, you have to care for them and watch over them to make sure that they remain healthy and strong. The most beautiful and magnificent flower in the world will wither and die if left uncared for, and if you "find the perfect person" and then decide that you were meant to be together and that nothing could go wrong as a result, there is a lot of potential for things to turn pretty nasty. Likewise, a neglected and seemingly unspectacular plant could end up growing and flourishing under a nurturing and tender hand. A seemingly unlikely relationship could end up working out quite well if both parties decide to actively work together on it. Love is something you have to work at, and you have to choose to work at it. When you enter into a relationship with someone you have to commit to putting your back into it and pouring blood, sweat, and tears into making it turn out right.
Eventually, once you and your best friend have made the active and continual decision to pursue a relationship, and you have found that you share enough common ground, beliefs, and opinions that you actually want to spend the rest of your lives together, you get to move onto the next stage: Engagement.
Again, I understand that everyone is different, but I don't understand the decision to enter into an engagement and then wait two... three.... four... or more years until you actually get married. Once you have made the for sure decision to get married and share your lives than you don't want to wait any longer than you have to. I haven't been engaged myself, but I've known quite a few people that have been engaged and I've watched a lot of those relationships go from beginning to end. During the engagement seems to be when emotions are the most fevered, and feelings are the most sensitive. That's when people seem to start questioning their decisions and getting panicky just because the time to make that final commitment is rapidly approaching. Once you have gotten engaged though, you have essentially promised to make the vows that you will on your wedding day. You aren't actually married yet, but you have promised each other that you will be, and I don't see why you'd want to drag out the time between making that first promise and fulfilling it.
Instead, it seems to me like it would be so much more helpful to you and your spouse to be if you wait to get engaged until you actually are ready to fully commit and get married in the very near future. Spend the time leading up to that point getting to know each other better and better, because there is really not much you can do as couple before engagement that you can do as couple engaged. Like I said, I haven't been engaged yet myself, but the only thing I've seen prolonged engagements do is weaken relationships because the hype surrounding them can only last so long and eventually seems to turn into impatience, frustration, and a lack of interest... but that's just my two cents.
When the day finally comes for the wedding however, I feel like there are a few things that I can speak to with absolute certainty. For one, we are far too receptive to the idea of divorce in our culture. When you get married you are making a promise, a very serious promise, to love and cherish your spouse until death do you part. Baring abuse, there is almost no good reason for two people to divorce. The wedding is that point where your choice to continue loving and caring for someone gets locked in, and you really shouldn't be able to just back out anymore. You take relationships and engagements leading up to that point seriously, because once you have exchanged vows and the service has ended things should be set in stone.
Honestly, I think one of culture's greatest weaknesses when it comes to this entire topic is that we don't, as a whole, seem to really understand what marriage really means. When you marry someone you are leaving your mother and father behind and are becoming one flesh. You and the person you marry are entering into a vocation ordained by God, and it is a vocation that should not be taken lightly. What God has brought together let no man break asunder! Marriage is really not for the sake of personal convenience or pleasure, it is for the benefit of the community and world at large when husband and wife appreciate and understand the significance of their duties to each other, and to their children. If you never get married there is nothing wrong with that, but if you do it should not be because you want to make yourself, or even your spouse, happy. Marriage is about family, it is about the church, and it is about making you and your spouse better people for the wider community.
Unfortunately, what I cannot figure out how to say what I want to any more eloquently than that. For honestly, what more is there to be said? At its heart love is a choice that you make, and one that you fight for against you own sinful temptations and flaws. Acknowledging this, and acknowledging that love and relationships are not about us and our personal happiness, makes everything so much clearer and easier.
I cannot say that this series went exactly the way I wanted it to. I never feel quite satisfied with what I have to say once I finish, and I fell way behind schedule, but my hope is perhaps some of you gained some insights from my thoughts, or at least enjoyed/appreciated reading them. The whole topic is infinitely more complex than what I touched upon here, and I could write a million posts without being able to say all that there is to say, but hopefully what I did say is worth reading.
If you got this far, than thanks for reading and have a Merry Christmas!
Pax
Within my personal social circles there are very few topics discussed and debated quite as much as that of relationships and how they should be handled, viewed, carried out, introduced, etc. etc. It is a topic that people tend to be both passionate and biased toward, and one where there is a great reluctance to listen to any contrary pieces of advice or suggestions from anyone else because either A) there is no way anyone else could ever understand what they are thinking or B) they have enough experience under the belt and have studied relationships enough that they clearly know better than anyone else how relationships should function. It is a topic where the pendulum of opinion seems to either swing toward the extreme of absolute slackness and freedom within a romantic relationship to the extreme of their being only one proper way for every relationship ever to be handled.
I am going to try and walk the line between those tempting extremes and lay out what I have observed, experienced, think, and feel about the whole subject in a way that you can at least appreciate if not agree with. The key thing to understand when thinking about relationships of a more romantic nature is that, while there are certainly truths and realities about human nature that apply to pretty much the entire human race, everyone is different and when you start putting two people together, an even more unique situation occurs. It absolutely a good idea, in my opinion, to draw upon past experiences and knowledge you have gathered in your own relationships and the relationships of friends/siblings/children/parents etc, but always try to keep in mind that the circumstances and nature of every relationship is going to vary. This is something I tend to have trouble remembering myself, but I encourage you all, as I divulge my personal opinions, to take my words with a grain of salt and understand that I am not trying to lay down an unwavering ultimatum.
No, on with the show...
Because there is a kind of natural chronological progression for romantic relationships between the interest being sparked and the knot being tied, I figure it makes the most sense to start at the beginning and conclude with the ending.
I know it sounds a little bit cheesy (w are talking about romantic love here), but your future spouse should be your best friend, and I think every romantic relationship should be founded on a strong friendship. Feelings and twitterpation are all fine and good, but they aren't going to stand the test of time all on their own. Before you even consider entering into a more serious, romance orientated relationship with someone, you should a friendship already established and a friendship based on common interests and beliefs. Your significant other should be someone who believes the same foundational principles as you when it comes things like politics and especially religion. While it is entirely possible for relationships between people of different political stances and faiths to work out, I don't see how that could ever be easy and I've seen several scenarios where it makes things rough for both the couple and their children. If you think about it, your religious faith is a pretty massively important thing, and if you really believe the teachings of your religion that you have to hold those teachings above your personal feelings for another person. If you can't have common ground on issues like then you are asking for trials and troubles ahead.
Long term, functional relationships are going to need some kind of common ground to stand on when the going gets rough and the rough gets going, because real life likes to throw a lot of curve balls our way, and during those times we tend to get depressed, frustrated, angry, and confused and if you are in a relationship with someone where your passionate feelings and emotion based love for them is what you are depending on for success, that depression, frustration, and anger is going to override your twitterpation and things are going to go south pretty quickly. (No offense Texas.)
Of course, this is all assuming you are looking at relationships being a long term investment in the first place. For me, when you enter in a romantic relationship with another person and become "an item" you are making a decision to work towards something. These relationships aren't stationary things that exist in some kind of limbo. The longer you are in a relationship, the more difficulties and temptations you are going to face, and if you don't have some kind of goal or purpose to which you are working, things are going to get messy. Regardless of how you operate your boyfriend/girlfriend experience, I firmly believe that every romantic relationship should be founded on the purpose of either moving towards marriage or determining that your boyfriend/girlfriend isn't someone you could marry. If you reach the latter conclusion you should back out and end the thing, because otherwise you are committing more and more of yourself and your time into something that is going to escalate without ever having a way to vent or focus that escalation.
I have heard the argument that you have to date a variety of people, or enter into open ended relationships because otherwise you don't have any way of finding out whether or not someone is "the right person" or not. There appears to be this idea that it is only through expressing outward romantic affection, dedicating vast amounts of time to a specific person, and potentially going as far as living with/sleeping with someone are you able to determine whether or not they are someone you could marry and love for the duration of your life. I would like to propose that this way of thinking is utter nonsense.
Firstly, if you are getting to know someone as a close friend like I have already suggested as being important for a relationship to work well, than you should know that person pretty well already before you ever enter into a relationship with them. When you are in dating/courting someone you do learn things about them that you don't in regular routine interactions, but when it comes to figuring out whether or not someone is the kind of person you could spend your life with, it is the day to day routine activities that are most likely to make or break the deal. How someone handles stress/frustration/anger disappointment, how someone treats other people of your gender, how someone treats their parents and siblings, and how someone juggles their responsibilities are all things that you can learn pretty easily without ever moving in with them. These things, along the previously mentioned political and religious beliefs, are significant traits and points of interest about someone that you find out about just by being close friends.
Secondly, you don't exactly "figure out" whether or not someone is a person you can love and dedicate your life to. Twitterpation and infatuation are all fine and dandy, but the lightheaded thoughts and feelings you experience about that special person early on in a relationship aren't going to last indefinitely. so it isn't like you've found "the right person" as soon as your heart starts fluttering. The kind of love that is associated with couples is the kind of love that you chose. You make the individual choice to personally nurture and grow the relationship between yourself and another person, and from that comes the kind of lifelong, steadfast, loving relationships that we see in couples celebrating their 40th, 50th, 60th, and greater wedding anniversaries. It is true that when you are in a relationship with someone before marriage you should be looking for evidence that you two will be able to function as a couple later on in life, as well as reasons to why you wouldn't make a good married couples (if you find those you need to address them or end the relationship), but ultimately you have to choose whether or not that relationship is going to work and then you make it work.
Relationships are growing and changing things, and like and growing thing, you have to care for them and watch over them to make sure that they remain healthy and strong. The most beautiful and magnificent flower in the world will wither and die if left uncared for, and if you "find the perfect person" and then decide that you were meant to be together and that nothing could go wrong as a result, there is a lot of potential for things to turn pretty nasty. Likewise, a neglected and seemingly unspectacular plant could end up growing and flourishing under a nurturing and tender hand. A seemingly unlikely relationship could end up working out quite well if both parties decide to actively work together on it. Love is something you have to work at, and you have to choose to work at it. When you enter into a relationship with someone you have to commit to putting your back into it and pouring blood, sweat, and tears into making it turn out right.
Eventually, once you and your best friend have made the active and continual decision to pursue a relationship, and you have found that you share enough common ground, beliefs, and opinions that you actually want to spend the rest of your lives together, you get to move onto the next stage: Engagement.
Again, I understand that everyone is different, but I don't understand the decision to enter into an engagement and then wait two... three.... four... or more years until you actually get married. Once you have made the for sure decision to get married and share your lives than you don't want to wait any longer than you have to. I haven't been engaged myself, but I've known quite a few people that have been engaged and I've watched a lot of those relationships go from beginning to end. During the engagement seems to be when emotions are the most fevered, and feelings are the most sensitive. That's when people seem to start questioning their decisions and getting panicky just because the time to make that final commitment is rapidly approaching. Once you have gotten engaged though, you have essentially promised to make the vows that you will on your wedding day. You aren't actually married yet, but you have promised each other that you will be, and I don't see why you'd want to drag out the time between making that first promise and fulfilling it.
Instead, it seems to me like it would be so much more helpful to you and your spouse to be if you wait to get engaged until you actually are ready to fully commit and get married in the very near future. Spend the time leading up to that point getting to know each other better and better, because there is really not much you can do as couple before engagement that you can do as couple engaged. Like I said, I haven't been engaged yet myself, but the only thing I've seen prolonged engagements do is weaken relationships because the hype surrounding them can only last so long and eventually seems to turn into impatience, frustration, and a lack of interest... but that's just my two cents.
When the day finally comes for the wedding however, I feel like there are a few things that I can speak to with absolute certainty. For one, we are far too receptive to the idea of divorce in our culture. When you get married you are making a promise, a very serious promise, to love and cherish your spouse until death do you part. Baring abuse, there is almost no good reason for two people to divorce. The wedding is that point where your choice to continue loving and caring for someone gets locked in, and you really shouldn't be able to just back out anymore. You take relationships and engagements leading up to that point seriously, because once you have exchanged vows and the service has ended things should be set in stone.
Honestly, I think one of culture's greatest weaknesses when it comes to this entire topic is that we don't, as a whole, seem to really understand what marriage really means. When you marry someone you are leaving your mother and father behind and are becoming one flesh. You and the person you marry are entering into a vocation ordained by God, and it is a vocation that should not be taken lightly. What God has brought together let no man break asunder! Marriage is really not for the sake of personal convenience or pleasure, it is for the benefit of the community and world at large when husband and wife appreciate and understand the significance of their duties to each other, and to their children. If you never get married there is nothing wrong with that, but if you do it should not be because you want to make yourself, or even your spouse, happy. Marriage is about family, it is about the church, and it is about making you and your spouse better people for the wider community.
Unfortunately, what I cannot figure out how to say what I want to any more eloquently than that. For honestly, what more is there to be said? At its heart love is a choice that you make, and one that you fight for against you own sinful temptations and flaws. Acknowledging this, and acknowledging that love and relationships are not about us and our personal happiness, makes everything so much clearer and easier.
I cannot say that this series went exactly the way I wanted it to. I never feel quite satisfied with what I have to say once I finish, and I fell way behind schedule, but my hope is perhaps some of you gained some insights from my thoughts, or at least enjoyed/appreciated reading them. The whole topic is infinitely more complex than what I touched upon here, and I could write a million posts without being able to say all that there is to say, but hopefully what I did say is worth reading.
If you got this far, than thanks for reading and have a Merry Christmas!
Pax
Thursday, December 12, 2013
The Last Post is Coming Soon...
So, I know I am way behind schedule with my last post in my blog series, but I just finished Finals today and things have been kind of crazy around here with getting through the last stretch of the school year. I wanted to make sure I put the right amount of thought and time into this last post, and hopefully over the next week I'll have more freedom to do that.
The post is coming and has been started... I've just bee slackin' too much to get it out yet...
The post is coming and has been started... I've just bee slackin' too much to get it out yet...
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