Marriage is a rubber band--deal with it

Marriage is a rubber band—there—I said it.

And not in a “suffering the welt of a pop” kind of way.

                                                                                            

This is not meant to be a deep discussion of marriage. It’s born out of my own day-to-day experience as well as the experiences of interacting in several dozen marriages of friends and family. Some of these observations have been of ongoing successes. Some of them have been of failures.

Ok, I’m already treading on dangerous territory because you might infer from my statement of “some have been failures” that I’m about to leap into a twisted rant about the eViLs of divorce and the uNhOliNeSs of giving up on a spouse.

That is NOT my direction. Far be it for me to determine what is best for all marriages under all sets of circumstances. The only marriage I can speak with any kind of authority on is my own. And even that analysis is one-sided. My wife invariably sees things from a different perspective than I do.

Ok, I’m tiring of the disclaimers. Infer what you want. Marriage is still a rubber band—deal with it.

The rubber band binds us together. It is flexible (thank God) and it smells like rubber (which is completely irrelevant).

The tension of the rubber band is caused by 1 of 3 different scenarios:

1. Spouses are moving in opposite directions.
2. One spouse is moving away while the other stays anchored.
3. A third force (work, kids, inappropriate relationship, finances, etc.) pulls at the band.

We are dealing with the forces of tension daily. It’s one of the reasons that sex is such a critical part of managing the rubber band. Whether it’s romantic and exciting or routine and boring, when we are sexually active with our spouse it’s the only time that we put the rubber band aside for a moment and come together. Everyone needs that tension release whether it’s for 5 minutes or 45. If it takes you more than 45 minutes then you aren’t doing it right.

Also, let’s define “sexually active” just for kicks. Someone that engages in physical activity only twice a month is not, under any circumstances, considered physically active. Similarly, if sex with your partner occurs about as frequently as a full moon then you, my friend, are NOT sexually ACTIVE. Get with the program!

Also, if you or your spouse always seems to be waiting for the tension of  the rubber band to subside in order to value or enjoy the sex, you’re missing the point. You’ve got the cart in front of the horse. Again, get with the program!

Spouses Moving in Opposite Directions:

What’s your example?

Mine is when my wife says, “I’d really like to have my entire family here for Thanksgiving.” My response could should be, “Okay, honey, let’s talk about what that would look like.”

More than likely my response is more like a scene from the move “300”—“Let them come! For in the end, we all must die just as we have lived! On that day, I will either hold my shield or be carried upon it!”

I am a very transparent individual. You always know where you stand with me. I don’t often hold back. I can put severe tension on that rubber band very very quickly. I suck…

One Spouse Moving—Other Spouse Anchored:

Maybe the anchoring isn’t a choice. Kids can anchor one spouse while the other moves freely. Work can anchor. Finances can anchor. Extended family can anchor. Lots of things (both good and bad) can anchor. Some anchoring can be healthy. Some anchoring can be unhealthy.

Either way, the tension of the rubber band can be managed as long as the freely moving spouse doesn’t pull too far away from the other. Some pull away might be good, but stretching it to its limits for prolonged periods of time weakens the band.

Remember, one spouse doesn’t want to maintain appropriate routine for the kids while the other is running all over the place or doing nothing at all. This situation can play itself out in a myriad of ways. Use your imagination…this affects both men and women and is NOT a primarily male disposition. We all do this in one way or another.

My example? First year of marriage my wife and I worked different hours. I was a 9 to 5’er. She was 2 to 10. So, what? I’m supposed to come home and wait on her for 5 hours pining away the minutes until my darling wife returned home to my loving arms? Uh, no… I would hit the pool hall, baseball game (we lived 2 miles from a MLB park), or favorite watering hole with my buddies. I was always home by 10. On a good night, I was mildly buzzed. On a not-so-good night, well……

Again, I sucked. I pulled tension on that rubber band 5 days a week and expected our time together on the weekends to be blissful and joyous. This was going to be great if I could just get the wife to get on board with my plan of pretty much doing whatever the hell I wanted to all week long. Thankfully, she never even head-faked at understanding that plan. She’s definitely got some Spartan in her too.

Third Finger at the Band:

This one seems to be a choice thing even when we don’t realize we’ve made the choice or that there was ever a choice to be made.

Work pulls and pulls and pulls and financial obligation makes us accept this ever increasing pull. What I’d like to say here is that money isn’t everything and neither is work so quit letting these things add tension to your rubber band. However, what I will say is that these things are a reality we all have to deal with in the real world and the tension must be compensated for by closing ranks with your spouse. As tension increases and until tension can be diminished, two points of the triangle must come together to avoid breakage.

The same thing applies to kids, outside activities, organizational involvements, and other activities.

Inappropriate relationships are an entirely different animal altogether. The devastating effect of inappropriate relationships as an influential force on the rubber band is exacerbated by the inability of spouses to draw closer to one another as long as one spouse allows the outside relationship to continue. These types of relationships aren’t always sexual affairs. They can manifest themselves in a myriad of ways.

My example is pretty vanilla so don’t get all excited. Give me some breathing room here.

///Deep Breath…….and breath out///

I had an affair with Skoal for the first 9 years of our marriage. Now, in all fairness Skoal had been with me for 9 years before we got married. What?! It was a matter of seniority. She knew I dipped when she met me and I never promised to quit before we got married.

Let me explain why this was an inappropriate relationship for me. It wasn’t as much that I was a tobacco user. It was that dipping was a taboo subject for my wife.

“I promise to love, honor, and cherish you all the days of my life, but don’t even think about talking about my dipping tobacco because that’s all mine. You stay the hell away from that!”

“You know I’d throw myself in front of a bus to save you, baby, but I do not discuss my Skoal with you, remember.”

“I would read to you from our notebook every day if you suffered from Alzheimer’s just so I could spend those special days with you when you remembered who I was and our life together, but if you speak of my Skoal again I will throw a walleyed fit just like I did last time.”

{Inappropriate relationship}

Of course, if you find yourself engaging in a better friendship with someone other than your spouse on a regular basis (emotional cheating) or you are boinking someone other than your spouse, that would work as an example too.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Managing the Rubber Band:

No secrets here. Find a way to shift when the tension builds. Don’t try to see how far the band can stretch before it snaps. Manage the band. Don’t let it cut off your circulation. It’s not the band's fault that your finger is purple. Manage the band. When 18 fingers are all pulling at the band from different directions and the two of you are situated as close to one another as you can get, that’s a good thing. That is oneness.

If your spouse is anchored for no other reason than stubbornness—unwilling to converse and adjust and compromise—then kick them in the ass. No, I’m serious (not physically unless you’re my wife). I mean get up in their grill and force the issue. “You’re being a stubborn jackass and I won’t have it. Compromise is not a one way street, dumbass.”

If your kids are pulling at the band for no other reason than to get their way then kick their ass too while you’re in the ass-kicking mood. Partner with your spouse and do some metaphorical ass-kicking. It can be your new hobby that you share with one another. “If you want to take on Mom then you gotta get through me first. I brought you into this world, and I’ll take you OUT.” This is called “going Cosby on the kids.”

If the both of you are moving in different directions as if you are independent souls enjoying full autonomy from one another, then just stop it. No, I mean it. Resentment is ruthless. It will sneak in and it will jack you up.

Remember that person you said you loved with all your heart? You can wind up sitting with friends a few years later talking all about what a piece of shit they are. The weird thing is that you might love them til the very last moment and then, suddenly, when the divorce papers are filed and you look over their demands with your attorney all the filters inside your heart will flick off revealing what a truly horrible person they were. But you’d grown accustomed to the immense tension on the rubber band so much so that your finger grew callouses.

What’s the Freakin’ Goal?

I think the goal is NOT just to adjust to the tension on the rubber band generated by life. Likewise, I do NOT think the goal is to avoid all tension on the band. I think the goal is to work as a unit to manage the band through all different seasons of tension with an eye toward the 65 years we should all intend to manage this very same band.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rubber band is much more flexible or stretchy in the first 10 years of marriage. I think that’s a design feature. It flexes well and snaps back to its original size. It is resilient even when we don’t think it’s all that resilient.

Don’t treat your rubber band as if you intend on replacing it in 10 years even if you do. Likewise, don’t accept long term extremes of tension on your band if there’s something you can do about it.

Marriage is a rubber band—there—I said it.

Protect the broken - don't try to fix them. God is the fixer.

Deep dark naughty secrets that are hidden and guarded make us disbelieve grace. They cause us to devalue ourselves. These things that we despise about ourselves affect the ways that we see the world and those around us. We dare not expect better from others when we know how capable WE are of evil.

Hide it at all cost! Slight of hand...use of shadow...smiling mask...


Don't let anyone know the hurt and suffering that plague our lives. Maintain the image that I am Christian and, therefore, pure. I am Christian and, therefore, holy. I am Christian and, therefore, without need of a good foot washing.

You might be surprised! - Jamie the VWM

Watch and listen to the end of the 32 minutes or else you shouldn't bother...

My Take: Bible condemns a lot, so why focus on homosexuality?

by Johnathan Dudley
via CNN Belief Blog

Editor's Note: Jonathan Dudley is the author of Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics.

Growing up in the evangelical community, I learned the Bible’s stance on homosexuality is clear-cut. God condemns it, I was taught, and those who disagree just haven’t read their Bibles closely enough.

Having recently graduated from Yale Divinity School, I can say that my childhood community’s approach to gay rights—though well intentioned—is riddled with self-serving double standards.

I don’t doubt that the one New Testament author who wrote on the subject of male-male intercourse thought it a sin. In Romans 1, the only passage in the Bible where a reason is explicitly given for opposing same-sex relations, the Apostle Paul calls them “unnatural.”

Problem is, Paul’s only other moral argument from nature is the following: “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?” (1 Corinthians 11:14-15).

Few Christians would answer that question with a “yes.”

In short, Paul objects to two things as unnatural: one is male-male sex and the other is long hair on men and short hair on women. The community opposed to gay marriage takes one condemnation as timeless and universal and the other as culturally relative.

I also don’t doubt that those who advocate gay marriage are advocating a revision of the Christian tradition.

But the community opposed to gay marriage has itself revised the Christian tradition in a host of ways. For the first 1500 years of Christianity, for example, marriage was deemed morally inferior to celibacy. When a theologian named Jovinian challenged that hierarchy in 390 A.D. — merely by suggesting that marriage and celibacy might be equally worthwhile endeavors — he was deemed a heretic and excommunicated from the church.

How does that sit with “family values” activism today?

Yale New Testament professor Dale B. Martin has noted that today’s "pro-family" activism, despite its pretense to be representing traditional Christian values, would have been considered “heresy” for most of the church’s history.

The community opposed to gay marriage has also departed from the Christian tradition on another issue at the heart of its social agenda: abortion.

Unbeknownst to most lay Christians, the vast majority of Christian theologians and saints throughout history have not believed life begins at conception.

Although he admitted some uncertainty on the matter, the hugely influential 4th and 5th century Christian thinker Saint Augustine wrote, “it could not be said that there was a living soul in [a] body” if it is “not yet endowed with senses.”

Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic saint and a giant of mediaeval theology, argued: “before the body has organs in any way whatever, it cannot be receptive of the soul.”

American evangelicals, meanwhile, widely opposed the idea that life begins at conception until the 1970s, with some even advocating looser abortion laws based on their reading of the Bible before then.

It won’t do to oppose gay marriage because it’s not traditional while advocating other positions that are not traditional.

And then there’s the topic of divorce. Although there is only one uncontested reference to same-sex relations in the New Testament, divorce is condemned throughout, both by Jesus and Paul. To quote Jesus from the Gospel of Mark: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.”

A possible exception is made only for unfaithfulness.

The community most opposed to gay marriage usually reads these condemnations very leniently. A 2007 issue of Christianity Today, for example, featured a story on its cover about divorce that concluded that Christians should permit divorce for “adultery,” “emotional and physical neglect” and “abandonment and abuse.”

The author emphasizes how impractical it would be to apply a strict interpretation of Jesus on this matter: “It is difficult to believe the Bible can be as impractical as this interpretation implies.”

Indeed it is.

On the other hand, it’s not at all difficult for a community of Christian leaders, who are almost exclusively white, heterosexual men, to advocate interpretations that can be very impractical for a historically oppressed minority to which they do not belong – homosexuals.

Whether the topic is hair length, celibacy, when life begins, or divorce, time and again, the leaders most opposed to gay marriage have demonstrated an incredible willingness to consider nuances and complicating considerations when their own interests are at stake.

Since graduating from seminary, I no longer identify with the evangelical community of my youth. The community gave me many fond memories and sound values but it also taught me to take the very human perspectives of its leaders and attribute them to God.

So let’s stop the charade and be honest.

Opponents of gay marriage aren’t defending the Bible’s values. They’re using the Bible to defend their own.

[Full Article with Comments]

Magdalene And Thistle Farms Offer Prostitutes A Chance For Regrowth

by Melinda Clark
The Huffington Post

For many women on the street, prostitution was where they turned when they had no other options. But in Nashville, Tenn., there is another choice for these women -- Magdalene.

Magdalene is a private residential rehab center that takes its motto of "love heals" very seriously.

Founded in 1997 by Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest who knows the horrors of abuse from her own childhood, Magdalene is a sanctuary for women with criminal histories of prostitution and drug addiction.

At Magdalene, women receive two years of free housing, therapy, medical care, education and employment -- everything they need to prepare them for the transition back into a community.

[Full Article]

Does God Hate Women?

by Sally Quinn
via The Washington Post


Does God hate women? This is a question that never occurred to me until I began to study religion. What I found seemed shocking. In every major faith women are or have been treated as second-class citizens.

That may not be God’s doing, of course. It might be purely a reflection of how some male-dominated religious hierarchies carry out the seeming commands of God.

But what gives anyone the right to decree that women cannot be priests (as in the Catholic Church) or not be allowed to drive (as in the stricter interpretations of Islam). Is it God’s will that Muslim women in certain theocracies have few rights?

[Full Article]

While I do not share Ms. Quinn's enthusiastic endorsement of Jimmy Carter, I do feel that it's important when considering the roles of women within organized religion to consider that while RELIGION teaches that women are inferior...GOD does not.

~Bonar

Tony Campolo

Sexual Assault, Cold Nights and God’s Plan

by Hugh Hollowell

via Red Letter Christians

At 23, most people her age are very conscious of their appearance, but Stephanie’s wardrobe consisted of thrift store finds and cast offs, leaning heavily toward stretch pants and sweatshirts that advertised events she had never seen and places she would never visit. She was a heavy girl, perhaps 250 pounds and her greasy, stringy hair only served to accentuate her poor skin. Because of her weight, she more shuffled than walked and her head was always bowed, seeking not to offend, avoiding eye contact.

The first time I met her, she was in line for food in the park. She shuffled along, mumbling thanks, eyes on the ground. Over the following months, I tried to engage her but whether it was my being a male, or her inner demons, it just was not happening. Like a dog that had been struck once too often, she flinched at contact.

When there was an open bed, Stephanie would stay at the woman’s shelter, but more often than not she had to make other arrangements. On cold nights, she would trade sexual favors in exchange for a warm bed. To pick up spending money, she would trade sex for money – very little money.

Because of her weight and mental issues, often the promise of a warm bed was revoked, or the money not paid after the oral sex had been given. Several people later told me Stephanie was often sexually assaulted and raped, unable to resist her attackers.

The last time I saw her was on a Thursday in early November. It was inordinately cold that day, with a sharp, piercing wind. Stephanie shuffled down the sidewalk, huddled down into her jacket, oblivious to my wave, ignoring me when I called.

Stephanie made it into the women’s shelter that night. There she could sleep; secure in the knowledge she was safe. In her sleep, Stephanie died of complications from sleep apnea. At age 23, she was another statistic of life, and death, on the streets.

* * * *

I told Stephanie’s story in a talk I gave at a church luncheon. When I finished, they prayed fervent prayers that Stephanie would be at peace in the loving arms of Jesus. They prayed that those who injure and molest women like Stephanie would be caught and punished. They prayed for God’s kingdom to come and for shalom to rest on our city.

At the end of the talk, a lady came up to me, obviously moved by my story. Then she asked me the question I dread most: “How could God allow this to happen to Stephanie? Was this all part of God’s plan?”

If you spend much time working in the inner-city, you try not to ask yourself that question–not because you don’t know what the answer is, but because you do. And if you tell people the answer to that question, they get mad at you, and they call you names, and they don’t invite you back.

What I wanted to tell that lady, but did not, was God did have a plan to take care of Stephanie; God’s plan was us.

I wanted to tell her that it is not we who are waiting on God to act, but rather it is God who is waiting on us. I wanted to tell her that what Stephanie really had needed was not this lady’s prayers but a safe place to sleep at night. What I wanted to tell that lady, but didn’t, is that it is very obvious that we have the resources to help invisible people just like Stephanie but we simply lack the will to do so.

I did not tell that church lady any of that. But I wish I had.

–
Hugh Hollowell is an activist, a speaker and a Mennonite minister. He’s the founder and director of Love Wins Ministries where he pastors a congregation made up largely of people who are homeless

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood

If you can't appreciate this then get off my site!

Conversions: From Christian Missionary to Atheist

by Jason Boyett

Today’s conversion story comes from Amy, a former Christian missionary, homeschooling mom, and magazine editor who has recently abandoned Christianity altogether. Now an atheist, she has asked that I only use her first name.


I grew up in a nominally Christian home—Mom took us to church occasionally at a mainline, liberal Methodist Church (There were 13 churches and 13 streets in my hometown—this church was one of the few “mainstream.”) I would consider myself a “seeking” kid. I prayed and had a sense of “something larger.” God/nature. Jesus. Whatever. I remember once seeing a part of a Billy Graham Crusade on TV where he was preaching that Jesus died for our sins. Frequently thereafter I would sit in church and look up at the big cross and wonder, “What does that mean? Does that mean I would have died on a cross if Jesus hadn’t?” About a year later (when I was 13), I was talking about Heaven with my best friend who was Baptist, and she asked me if I was saved. I wasn’t, but I understood instinctively that to be “saved” meant to be saved from something. I was instantly fascinated. To make a long story short, I met her at her pastor’s house that weekend and repented and invited Jesus into my life.

It was a meaningful and deeply moving experience. Pastor King explained the gospel in much the same way I presented it to other people in the years afterward. I remember crying and praying, on my own. “Thank you Jesus, for forgiving me. I know why you died on the cross, and that I never could have earned it.” I really understood what Billy Graham had been preaching about and I committed my life to Jesus that day. What’s more, I was completely bewildered by the beautiful simplicity of it. Why hadn’t anyone told me about this salvation before? I felt certain that anyone, hearing the truth of Jesus, would come to faith in Him as quickly as I had. If I’d had access to religious tracts, I would have been the most rabid tract-distributor the world has ever seen.

I read my Bible every day after that, as Pastor King suggested. I began praying regularly, going to church and youth group every week with my friend. I spent almost 20 years involved in evangelism, leading Bible studies, and on staff (with my husband) as missionaries in a well known, international, para-church organization. I was Assistant Editor of a Christian professionals magazine before my oldest child was born. Three years ago, my husband and I abandoned Christianity and deism. We are now atheists.

[Full Article]

Conversions: Fundamentalist Christian to Non-Religious Spirituality

Jason Boyett

Today's conversion story is from Christy, who due to the nature of her experience and family situation (keep reading) has requested that I not use her last name.

Christy transitioned from a fundamentalist Christian childhood to a socially active, progressive evangelical faith during the college years...and then to a current category she describes as "spiritual but not religious." In an email, she told me that, in terms of personal theology, she now "could fall quite nicely into the Unitarian Universalist or unprogrammed Quakers camp."

The overview version is that I was raised Christian, of the right-wing fundamentalist variety, in the Bible Belt in a family that went to church three times a week. I became a highly committed, move to the inner city, save-the-world evangelical in college and throughout my twenties. I was an intern for an urban ministry in college, was a youth pastor intern for about three years in a predominantly Mexican immigrant community, worked in a variety of non-profits (faith-based and not), and went to grad school and studied community organizations and urban poverty.

~ ~ ~

My conversion was more like coming out of the closet than changing my mind. I didn't "lose my faith" or "fall away" or any of those other terms -- it was very slow and intentional and a lot of hard work. I know it will seem like I'm burying the lead here, but I was sexually abused for nine years as a child and adolescent by my father and a youth pastor, and beginning to deal with that was the cataIyst for a new kind of spiritual journey for me.

It wasn't the sexual abuse itself that made me convert. Actually, the self-hatred that resulted from it was what kept me in the fold for so long. I always felt like I was morally defective and God hated me, and I didn't have the right to explore other options.

The truth is, evangelical Christianity never worked for me. Even though I'm a lifer, it always felt like there was some secret handshake to get in the club that I didn't know about. I had an absolutely tortured relationship with church even when I worked at one. I could never find myself in the "Sinner meets Jesus, Hallelujah!" narrative. In Bible studies, I was always the freak who disagreed. I felt awkward praying aloud, and felt guilty that I could never seem to generate the warm and fuzzy love for Jesus that so many worship songs talked about. Mostly, it felt like that path was the only way to connect with God, and I had to keep trying, so my primary spiritual experience was one of feeling alienated from God. (This is why I was always good with the angry kids in youth ministry.)

[Full Article]

How Christians should rethink sex

By Tyler Blanski, Special to CNN

Editor's Note: Tyler Blanski is the author of Mud & Poetry: Love, Sex, and the Sacred.

"When it comes to sex, many Christians confuse the fences for the playground.

We’ve created what I call the chastity cult. Married and single Christians alike put sex on a pedestal. We’re more serious and obsessed with the rules than we ought to be."

[Full Article] 

For some churches, Super Bowl Sunday is 'Porn Sunday'

By Elizabeth Tenety
What wouldn't Jesus do?

"Would Jesus love porn stars?

XXXChurch Founder and Pastor Craig Gross has spent the last decade answering that last question.

"Jesus would be at a porn show," Gross said in an interview Friday. "You read the New Testament --these are the people that Jesus hung out with, these are the people he sought after."

"That's the Jesus I know," Gross added."

 [Full Article]