Thankful Thursday #12

The weather turned autumnal rather quickly this month, and this week the trees and bushes suddenly turned “slap-you-down gorgeous” (as my dear wife put it) with oranges and reds that almost hurt your eyes.  We don’t get that every year, so I’m especially thankful for this unusual beauty.

Thankful Thursday #9

I know, today is Friday.  I had a busy Thursday this week.

Big things get all the press, but little things are more effective.  I am thankful for two effective little things this week.

First, this week I came home from work to a wife who had dinner already made.

Second, after a fast-paced day of hard work yesterday, my boss said to me with a smile, “Thank you for the work you did today.”

Neither of these acts required unusual effort, planning, or talent.  Both were amazingly effective in making me feel valuable.  I am thankful for these two people and these little things they did.

Thankful Thursday #5

I am thankful for parsley.  Some years ago, I decided to buy fresh parsley for a recipe instead of using the tasteless dried variety in my spice rack, and discovered to my delight that it has flavor — a nice flavor!  So, when my dear wife proposed starting a container garden this summer, I insisted on including parsley.  It has grown heartily, surviving caterpillars and some kind of fungus to enrich several of our meals this season.  Since it’s in a container, I plan to bring it indoors for the winter and hope I can keep it growing.  But I’ll plant it again in the spring if not.

Thankful Thursday

I was recently reminded how important being thankful is.  So, I’m taking advantage of alliteration to launch a “Thankful Thursday” feature on this blog.

Today I am thankful for the job interview that I must rush off to in a few minutes, so I will close my post here!  Say a prayer for me!

Letters — We Don’t Get Letters

Letters — We Don’t Get Letters

Years ago, before most people had e-mail, I wrote — and received — letters.  Letters extended several of my high school friendships almost through college, and some of my college friendships into my working years.  Letters also nurtured the relationship that became my marriage.

Now we have e-mail.  And social networking sites.  And blogs.  And cell phone texting.  All are so much faster and easier than letters.  But for me, they leave something significant to be desired.

A letter takes minutes (maybe hours) to write, days to deliver, and a week or more for a response.  So when writing a letter, a person carefully considers the content.  The content may be light-hearted, but the purpose is serious.

I don’t get letters anymore.  I tried sending letters after the e-revolution hoping that someone would reply, but no one did.  Neither, in my experience, do people respond to letters disguised as e-mail.  At least, not in kind.

I suspect that people have become uncomfortable with the depth a letter calls for because of how much our modern, urban, technological culture has isolated us from each other.  It’s ironic:  these technologies that boast of bringing us closer and these cities that bring us together physically have discouraged us from deeply knowing each other.

I still get “snail mail,” but the senders are interested not in me but in my money.  The mailbox has lost its charm.

Letters have not been replaced, but displaced.  We haven’t stopped needing depth in our relationships.  And for that, no high technology is necessary:  paper and pen, an envelope and a stamp will do.

Years ago, before most people had e-mail, I wrote — and received — letters. Letters extended several of my high school friendships almost through college, and some of my college friendships into my working years. Letters also nurtured the relationship that became my marriage.

Now we have e-mail. And social networking sites. And blogs. And cell phone texting. All are so much faster and easier than letters. But for me, they leave something significant to be desired.

A letter takes minutes (maybe hours) to write, days to deliver, and a week or more for a response. So when writing a letter, a person carefully considers the content. The content may be light-hearted, but the purpose is serious.

I don’t get letters anymore. I tried sending letters after the e-revolution hoping that someone would reply, but no one did. Neither, in my experience, do people respond to letters disguised as e-mail. At least, not in kind.

I suspect that people have become uncomfortable with the depth a letter calls for because of how much our modern, urban, technological culture has isolated us from each other. It’s ironic:  these technologies that boast of bringing us closer and these cities that bring us together physically have discouraged us from deeply knowing each other.

I still get “snail mail,” but the senders are interested not in me but in my money. The mailbox has lost its charm.

Letters have not been replaced, but displaced. We haven’t stopped needing depth in our relationships. And for that, no high technology is necessary:  paper and pen, an envelope and a stamp will do.

The Duchess

This weekend I saw the film, “The Duchess,” and it has me reflecting on what makes relationships work.

In the film, an 18th-century English duke chooses a bride and, as my wife likes to say, “mayhem ensues.”  The “mayhem” in this case is mostly relational:  marital tension, infidelity, and a very small (by 21st-century film standards) amount of violence.  It’s not a happy marriage.

So, being a good 21st-century American, I naturally have found myself trying to decide who is to blame for all this unhappiness.  In so doing, I had to re-examine my own theories of what makes a marriage happy (after all, one has to have an idea what the machine looked like when it worked before one can see what’s wrong with it). 

The film presents a relationship in which the man has virtually all the power.  So, one tends to blame the man.  One also tends to blame the society of that time and place for giving the woman so little power.  But I see that many 21st-century American marriages are also full of tension, infidelity, and violence — and as far as I know, women have never been more empowered.  I think a war metaphor makes this clear:  If Nation A and Nation B are at war, and Nation A has vastly superior military power, then Nation A will get its way and Nation B will not.  Nation B will, of course, continue to have some kind of resistance movement doing damage wherever it can, but it will mostly have to live under Nation A’s rule.  But what if Nation A and Nation B have similar military power?  Well, then their war will be very bloody and will last until they arrive at a compromise in which each gets only some of its desires fulfilled — or until they have destroyed each other.  But even when the shooting stops, the tensions that caused the war will continue and the shooting will begin anew just as soon as one thinks it has the military advantage over the other.

So, it seems that the tension and fighting are not caused by the difference or similarity of power.  Well then, where do they come from?  In a word:  selfishness.  It is as James said:  “What causes fights and quarrels among you?  Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” (James 4:1).  In the film, the Duke’s desires were portrayed as 1) maintaining his position in society, 2) passing that position to the next generation of his family, and 3) gratifying his own sexual desires.  The Duchess’s desires were portrayed as 1) expressing her creativity, 2) being “loved” (or, perhaps more accurately, being liked), and 3) being with her children.  The reality of a person’s desires is more complex than what can be portrayed in a film, of course, but this is what I saw.  The point is that the Duke and Duchess pursued their own desires without regard for the other’s.  I think the Duke might have treated his wife with more respect and still obtained most of his own desires, but his focus was so much on his own desires that he utterly disregarded his wife’s.  The Duchess, for her part, only helped the Duke because of her own lack of power in the situation.  She wasn’t getting what she wanted out of the relationship, and clearly would have preferred to leave him.

The Christian ideal is not like that.  What is it like?  Let’s look at what Jesus had to say:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducess, the Pharisees got together.  One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied:  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it:  ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  (Matthew 22:34-40)

“Love your neighbor as yourself,” He says, and the term “neighbor” certainly applies to one’s spouse. 

Now, while selfishness seeks the well-being of oneself, love seeks the well-being of others.  Imagine for a moment a world in which everyone seeks the well-being of everyone else.  In such a world, I don’t need to look out for my own well-being because everyone else is doing that for me.  Forget the clouds and the harps — this is what heaven is. 

Now imagine a world in which everyone seeks his own well-being without any regard for anyone else’s.  In such a world, can anyone really be happy?

And so, the Duke and the Duchess are both to blame (the Duke probably more so, but it can be tough to get a fix on proportional blame).  And so we are all to blame, to some degree, for all the unhappiness in the world today — because who has eliminated selfishness from his own heart?  I certainly haven’t.

Going, going, gone!

I am happy to announce that over Labor Day weekend we successfully negotiated an agreement with a buyer on Shelby’s house.  Of course, the house will have to be inspected and all the paperwork will have to be satisfactorily completed, and so on, so I’m not uncorking the champagne just yet.  But I have no reason to expect anything to go wrong.  The closing will be in about 45 days.  I thank you all for your prayers!

What’s going on in my world, August 13

After all the excitement of finishing up Shelby’s house and getting it on the market, all of the effort apparently caught up with me.  I was just exhausted!  So, I’ve been doing a lot of resting and restful things.  Like (lately) watching the Olympics.  I’m finally starting to recover.

I’ve been practicing my clarinet semi-regularly, and that has been rewarding in itself.  I am up to the section in the Klose book where he gives 50 progressive (that is, progressively more difficult) duets.  I have been recording myself playing one of the parts, and then playing the other part along with the recording.  It lacks the social aspect of a chamber ensemble, but it has been a lot of fun so far.  The first 24 have been pretty easy.  I peeked ahead at #50 — I have my work cut out for me.

I have been working on one of those heavyweight posts that seem to drive my blog stats, but so far I haven’t been able to make my thoughts coherent enough to publish. 

I’ve been doing a little thinking about how I want to organize a few things around the house — just thinking at this point, no action.

As for the house, we’ve had four showings scheduled so far this week.  We’re praying that it will sell quickly, and ask you to pray with us!

Turning Point

At last, the day has come!  We have an appointment with the realtor in just a few hours, and the house will soon have a “for sale” sign in front of it!  I’m sure that my work there will not be entirely done until we sign the papers at closing, but this represents a significant turning point and we are certainly going to celebrate it.

I already know what will occupy me next:  while I’ve been spending so much time on Shelby’s house, my own house has been neglected.  We’ve moved lots of “stuff” from his house to ours, and it’s all sitting wherever we could make it fit at the time.  Some of it needs to be sold or given away, but most of it will need to have a “place” appointed for it.  Order must be imposed on the chaos!

What’s going on in my world, July 22

This weekend I went to my niece’s wedding — yes, the same niece whose high school graduation reception I went to a couple of months ago.  Ah, young love!  It was an outdoor wedding, at the lake.  Storms were in the forecast, but the Lord smiled on the event and kept the dark clouds miles away.  The bride cried through the whole ceremony, tears of joy like I’ve never seen at any wedding that wasn’t scripted in Hollywood.  The reception was outdoors, too, and despite the heat we stayed there much later than we had intended, talking with relatives until the sun had nearly set.

We continue to slog away on the house.  Since my last report I have touched up the paint on the front porch, pulled weeds in the flower garden, and replaced some broken mini-blinds.  Tonight I plan to remove the last of the stuff from the garage.  Tomorrow we’ll be renting a power washer to blast the brick facade clean.  If all goes well, we’ll call the realtor Thursday or Friday and start the process of getting the place listed for sale.  Hallelujah!