I have spent a lot of time thinking about marriage preparation, and about what single people should be looking for in a prospective mate to begin with. I've had this idea for a while that too many couples are getting married without being properly and fully prepared. They just feel "stuck" in the relationship they are in, and think they need to take it "to the next level" in order to be happy. The don't honestly consider other mates or vocations, they don't have a good enough idea of the sacrifices involved in marriage and parenting, and so on. Is that why so many married people struggle to be happy?The really great thing is that her syntax is pretty damn good. That sort of disproves the idea that articulate people are not likely to be in a persistent hallucinatory state. Perhaps she's just an outlier.
But then last night I had an epiphany: God intends for us to struggle in marriage.
She's got a really great outlook, that I see from a lot of religious people. It's the "if it's bad, it must be God's will that it's bad" philosophy. That helps them stay in situations that are causing them grief. I've had one long term relationship (8 years), and when I realized I didn't want to be in it anymore, I got out. I did not say "Oh.. this is how God intends relationships to be, so I'll just be unhappy as per His will". Fuck that. I've never regretted the split for a moment, and in fact we became better friends after the breakup. People change. Life changes. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
I do NOT ascribe negative effects to some made up concept's desire for me. I do not suffer because I've deluded myself into thinking that pain is "good for me".
Truly.. whenever you see a faith healer lay hands and cure somebody.. it's always something that could have healed naturally on it's own. I've never seen Benny Hinn cause somebody to regrow a severed arm. If it's God's will to heal a cancer victim, why would he never have the will to heal somebody in a way that actually proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he exists? If you ask a religious person this question, they would say "it's God's will". No.. it's not "God's will", it's merely a cop out stock answer that they trot out whenever they can't explain the most basic of ambiguities.
And when you examine those methods, you'll find they track exactly with the methods of con artists. It's so easy for some people to accept the most unlikely of explanations, and then they turn around and use it as an excuse to subject themselves to negative life events.
The mind boggles at why they would do that.
Sure, the more selfish and sinful we are, the more we will struggle in our marriages. But even the absolute best marriages, with all the best intentions and best preparations will still struggle. Because that's where we grow, and God knows it. Our intentions are purified and clarified through struggle. This is why Catholics have long understood suffering of ANY kind, when united to the sufferings of Christ, to be a gift. Even suffering caused by the one we love most in this world.I swear to god I'm not making this up. It's a bizzare masochistic world they live in.
3 comments:
i was taught growing up that god was love..so the concept that god would want you in pain and to struggle in that pain, is completely foreign to me.
matter of fact, that lady scares me.
After reading a lot of her blog, I've come to the conclusion that her husband is probably beating her.. and the "God's will" rationale is probably the only way she can cope.
There is a reason that when we touch a hot burner, we instinctivly pull back our hand. It's the biology and evolution of human beings that cause us to recoil from pain because it's not good for us. It is bizzare beyond words for people to religiously revel in pain, though it does seem to go on.
In fact, few weeks ago I watched some documentary on certain Muslim sects that have weekly group meetins where they beat themselves, and stick needles through various body parts and so on. It seems the point is to demonstrate an altered state of consciousness, a religious fervor, which blocks out all external pain.
Me.. I think it's just being severly mentally ill.
I'm an engineer also, Tom...a registered P.E. I'm proficient in several languages, own several companies, and advise several of our (your) leaders. I'm married to a gorgeous, athletic woman who studied at Oxford and was a member of the select Oxford University Chorus. I'm thirty-three, and by many standards, most would say doing pretty well. You may be pleased to know that I have the respect and trust of many liberal elites in this region (university president, several tenured professors, newspaper editor, AARP leaders, NAACP leaders, NEA leaders, etc). That being said, you may like to be seen drinking wine at parties with me.
Then you find out I'm a devoted Catholic and that me and my wife have sired six children. I met with and conferred with the Vice President and Speaker of the House before the '04 elections. I voted for Bush. I believe our nation was founded on the principles of Judeo-Christian philosophies and philosophers. I believe the enforcement of U.N. Resolution 1441 and the toppling of Saddam Hussein was right and necessary. I believe abortion is an injustice to women and their unborn children. I believe that recognizing and publicly endorsing homosexual marriage will weaken society. I believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and I can unleash a syllogistic rationale more persuasive than you can that He didn't.
Now that you've heard this - recognizing that I disagree on many fundamental issues with you - you will no doubt pull back from the wine parties. You will say I am small-minded, weakly dependent on notions of imaginary gods, averse to knowledge, etc. As intellectually suspect as stereotyping is, I find it very easy to stereotype you. Your scoffing, uppity, anti-Christian ilk is mundanely predictable, and this blog of yours enforces such.
You may be offended by the terse and dismissive prose by which I address you on your own blog. I will further my candor and potential offense by saying I truly don't care. The title of your blog, Tom's Irrelevant Musings, should be minus that final word to be congruent with my opinion of you and this low traffic hate-trap of a blog. You have been engaged respectfully and intelligently by Joyful Wife, and yet you have the audacity to cyber-slap her, a woman and mother, because she believes differently than you. Where I'm from, only pencil armed sissies attack women, so I have a fair enough idea about your physical appearance too.
I've decided to post a nice little reflection on the Christianity which is parcel to our nation. It's one of 'dem 'dar quotes from a certain fellow. I hope the nine or ten readers of your blog will take the time to read it (below). Those who appreciate the discipline of historical reading may recognize some of the names.
Tom, the next time your barren blog is graced with a lady, might I suggest you treat her as one. Such an attitude may help you enter an abiding relationship something longer than eight years. And BTW Einstein, invoked is spelled with an "i", not an "e".
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"When the Congress met, Mr. Cushing made a motion that it should be opened with prayer. It was opposed by Mr. Jay of New York and Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, because we were divided in religious sentiments, some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists some Congregationalists, so that we could not join in the same set of worship. Mr. Samuel Adams rose and said, that he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from any gentleman of piety and virtue, and at the same time a friend to his country. He was a stranger in Philadelphia, but had heard that Mr. Duehe (Dushay they pronounce it) deserved that character, and therefore he moved that Mr. Duehe, an Episcopal clergyman, might be desired to read prayer to Congress to-morrow morning. The motion was carried in the affirmative. Mr. Randolph, our President, waited on Mr. D., and received for answer that if his health would permit he most certainly would. Accordingly he appeared with his clerk, and in his pontificals, and read several prayers in the established form, and then read the Collect for the 7th day of September, which was the 35th Psalm. You must remember this was the next morning after we had heard the rumor of the horrible cannonade of Boston. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning. After this, Mr. Duehe, unexpectedly to everybody, struck out into extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present. I must confess I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced -Episcopalian as he is. Dr. Cooper himself never prayed with such fervor, such ardor, such correctness and pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, for America, for Congress, for the province of the Massachusetts Bay, especially the town of Boston. It had excellent effect upon everybody here. I must beg you to read the paalm. If there is any faith in the sortes Virgiliance, or Homerica, or especially the sortes Bibliae, it would have been thought providential. Here was a scene worthy of the painter's art. It was in Carpenter's Hall, in Philadelphia, a building which we learn by a recent article still survives in its original condition, though sacrilegiously converted, we believe, in to an auction mart for the sale of chairs and tables, that the forty-four individuals met to whom the services were read. Washington was kneeling there, and Henry, and Randolph, and Rutledge, and Lee, and Jay; and by them stood, bowed in reverence, the Puritan patriots of New England, who, at that moment had reason to believe that as armed soldiery was wasting their humble households. It was believed that Boston had been bombarded and destroyed. They prayed fervently for America, for the Congress, for the province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially for the town of Boston; and who can realize the emotions which they turned imploringly to Heaven for divine interposition and aid! 'It was enough,' says Mr. Adams, 'to melt the heart of stone. I saw the tears gush into the eyes of the old, grave, pacific Quakers of Philadelphia."
-- John Adams
On the first Congress in Philadelphia
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