"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you." (John 15:9)
I am the father of eight children, ranging in age between 7 and 27. Over the past three-plus years, I have told many stories, centering on the life of our family, most particularly my marriage to my wife Molly, and some of the various and sundry churnings we've endured with our kids. A few of our struggles with our kids have gone beyond the run-of-the-mill, garden-variety kind of stuff, and there were a few years in the early 2000s when the life of our family was thrown into a pretty high degree of turmoil.
You can believe me if I tell you that, as a father, my first instinct in such times of turmoil is not always to wonder how I can help my wayward child find his/her way back to where they belong. Often as not, my first instinct is to make sure that my reamer has been properly sharpened. . .
A couple of our kids in particular, brought us just crushing grief, a few years back, and have struggled to varying degrees ever since, to get their lives together. Both of them are doing much better than what I blogged about, a few years back, but it has still been agonizing, at times, to watch one or the other of them (or both at once), continue to make the same bad choices that have brought them trouble, over and over again. We want nothing more than for their lives to go well, and yet, over and over again, our hearts get broken, as they go back around for another trip on the merry-go-round of their lives.
And sometimes, when the latest cycle has just begun, I think that it's just all too much for me, that I can't deal with my heart being broken yet again. I'm tempted to wave good-bye to my wayward children, to wish them well, and wash my hands, and leave them to their fate, and get on with my own life.
Such was my temptation, not too long ago, when the behavior of one of the older kids, once again, threw the family into a weekend of drama and turmoil. The younger kids were mad at the older kids, the older kids were mad at the younger kids, and each other, and everybody seemed to agree that, one way or another, it was all Molly's fault, and mine. (Note to my readers: many years ago, I instituted the policy that any of my kids who screws up their life, and blames it on Molly and/or me, will be cut out of their inheritance; at this point, my central task in that regard is to depart this life with enough of an inheritance left behind for it to be at least potentially meaningful for them to be cut out of it.) (*sigh*)
(I'm kidding!) (Mostly.)
Then I went to Mass on Sunday morning, and in the course of the Scripture readings (I don't even remember what they were), I inwardly heard my Heavenly Father ask how many times I supposed I had broken His heart. And suddenly, in an instant, I understood. At a deep level, broken hearts are a fundamental part of what it means to be a father. The question is not whether my heart will be broken, but rather, how will I respond when it inevitably is?
And so, like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, I wait. Hoping and praying, and trying to be ready for the day when my wayward child returns home once again. And hoping and praying that this time, it will be for good and for all. And turning my own broken heart to the Father of Hearts, whose own heart has been more cruelly broken than mine will ever be. And that, often as not, by me.
Mother Teresa often said that our major task in this life is learning what it really means to love. I just never imagined that it could be so heart-breaking. Or that I had so very much to learn. . .
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Turning Hearts of Parents
“He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and turn the hearts of children to their fathers. . .” (Malachi 4:6; ref. Luke 1:17)
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During December, Molly and I went to see the movie Fireproof. I don’t really have a lot to say about the movie; as is fairly typical of such movies, it had a solid message, but was executed in a pretty unsubtle manner. But, like some others, we were inspired to go get the book which the movie highlights, The Love Dare.
We didn’t dive right into the book; our marriage is really in pretty solid shape, and we don’t have much of a ‘felt need’ to make huge, transformative changes (not that there are no improvements that we could make; but it’s nice to be in a place not so far from ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’). But, over the Christmas break, Molly had what I can only refer to as an inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
“What if we did ‘The Love Dare’ with the kids?”
It was an idea stunning in its simplicity, and very pointedly directed at the needs of our family (and, maybe more to the point, to Molly’s-and-my needs as parents).
If you haven’t seen the movie, the couple at the heart of the story are struggling in their marriage, and on the edge of calling it quits. But the husband’s father convinces him to try ‘The Love Dare’ for 40 days, in a last, desperate effort to save their marriage. Every day for 40 days, there is a brief meditation on ‘Love’, or ‘Kindness’, or ‘Generosity’, etc, and an associated ‘dare’ – do some act of unsolicited kindness to your spouse, or whatever that day’s topic happens to be. And of course, by the end of the movie, the husband, by his persistent love (which, at first, he does pretty ‘mechanically’, but, as he goes along, he ‘grows into it’), has won back the heart of his wife.
So Molly was proposing that we take the chapters of The Love Dare, and, as parents together, direct them toward our kids. And it has been really, really good for us.
The first day, the ‘dare’ is simply to refrain from criticism. And honestly, I was surprised by how challenging that simple thing was, to pull off for a whole day. We were both confronted with how very critical we are of our kids, and how much of our day-to-day communication with them is critical, in one form or another.
On another of the early days, the ‘dare’ is to do some gracious act – some act of unmerited kindness. . . And so on. . .
And the thing is, we are feeling our hearts starting to change, toward our kids.
Both Molly and I can be fairly self-centered individuals. She can be very ‘task-oriented’, and I have a strong tendency to get lost in my own head. And both of us are pretty darned stubborn, and hotter-tempered than is always helpful. And those traits, over the course of 26+ years of parenthood, have often worked together to the detriment of our kids, who don’t know, as well as they should, that their parents love them, and take an intense interest in their lives and well-being. We’ve come to a good place in our marriage, but we’ve struggled a bit more to export the ‘good fruit’ of our strong marriage to the lives of our kids. And this is helping us to do that.
We haven’t been perfect with it, and we’re purposely taking it slow, so we can solidify the ‘habits of heart’ that are slowly being formed in us; I think we’re on Day Five, about two or three weeks after getting started (of course, some of that is because we have eight kids – we aren’t exempting our grown-and-moved-out kids from the project – whereas the book was written to be carried out toward one spouse). And we’re seeing how the kids respond, when we’re less critical, and kinder, and more gracious toward them. . . Maybe, just maybe, there’s hope that our family will get stronger, and more loving, and that our younger kids might avoid some of the struggles that their older siblings have had.
On one level, it seems a shame that we’re coming to this now, roughly two-thirds of the way (or more) through our child-rearing career. But, we do what we can. Wisdom and love come, more often than one might wish, out of the ashes of our own foolishness and failure.
And God is merciful.
Which is a darn good thing. . .
-------------------------
During December, Molly and I went to see the movie Fireproof. I don’t really have a lot to say about the movie; as is fairly typical of such movies, it had a solid message, but was executed in a pretty unsubtle manner. But, like some others, we were inspired to go get the book which the movie highlights, The Love Dare.
We didn’t dive right into the book; our marriage is really in pretty solid shape, and we don’t have much of a ‘felt need’ to make huge, transformative changes (not that there are no improvements that we could make; but it’s nice to be in a place not so far from ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’). But, over the Christmas break, Molly had what I can only refer to as an inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
“What if we did ‘The Love Dare’ with the kids?”
It was an idea stunning in its simplicity, and very pointedly directed at the needs of our family (and, maybe more to the point, to Molly’s-and-my needs as parents).
If you haven’t seen the movie, the couple at the heart of the story are struggling in their marriage, and on the edge of calling it quits. But the husband’s father convinces him to try ‘The Love Dare’ for 40 days, in a last, desperate effort to save their marriage. Every day for 40 days, there is a brief meditation on ‘Love’, or ‘Kindness’, or ‘Generosity’, etc, and an associated ‘dare’ – do some act of unsolicited kindness to your spouse, or whatever that day’s topic happens to be. And of course, by the end of the movie, the husband, by his persistent love (which, at first, he does pretty ‘mechanically’, but, as he goes along, he ‘grows into it’), has won back the heart of his wife.
So Molly was proposing that we take the chapters of The Love Dare, and, as parents together, direct them toward our kids. And it has been really, really good for us.
The first day, the ‘dare’ is simply to refrain from criticism. And honestly, I was surprised by how challenging that simple thing was, to pull off for a whole day. We were both confronted with how very critical we are of our kids, and how much of our day-to-day communication with them is critical, in one form or another.
On another of the early days, the ‘dare’ is to do some gracious act – some act of unmerited kindness. . . And so on. . .
And the thing is, we are feeling our hearts starting to change, toward our kids.
Both Molly and I can be fairly self-centered individuals. She can be very ‘task-oriented’, and I have a strong tendency to get lost in my own head. And both of us are pretty darned stubborn, and hotter-tempered than is always helpful. And those traits, over the course of 26+ years of parenthood, have often worked together to the detriment of our kids, who don’t know, as well as they should, that their parents love them, and take an intense interest in their lives and well-being. We’ve come to a good place in our marriage, but we’ve struggled a bit more to export the ‘good fruit’ of our strong marriage to the lives of our kids. And this is helping us to do that.
We haven’t been perfect with it, and we’re purposely taking it slow, so we can solidify the ‘habits of heart’ that are slowly being formed in us; I think we’re on Day Five, about two or three weeks after getting started (of course, some of that is because we have eight kids – we aren’t exempting our grown-and-moved-out kids from the project – whereas the book was written to be carried out toward one spouse). And we’re seeing how the kids respond, when we’re less critical, and kinder, and more gracious toward them. . . Maybe, just maybe, there’s hope that our family will get stronger, and more loving, and that our younger kids might avoid some of the struggles that their older siblings have had.
On one level, it seems a shame that we’re coming to this now, roughly two-thirds of the way (or more) through our child-rearing career. But, we do what we can. Wisdom and love come, more often than one might wish, out of the ashes of our own foolishness and failure.
And God is merciful.
Which is a darn good thing. . .
Monday, June 30, 2008
Love Hurts
“If I never loved, I never would have cried.”
Simon & Garfunkel
“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing, compared with love in dreams.”
Dostoevsky
“[Jesus], having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
The Gospel of John, chapter 13, verse 1
Mother Theresa was fond of saying that our main task in this life is learning what it really means to love. She was also fond of saying that there is no spiritual growth without suffering. And I’ve come to understand that the two – love and suffering – are not so very separate from each other.
I think we’re sort of conditioned by our culture to think of love in terms of mellow warm feelings toward another person – taking pleasure in their presence in our lives, wanting to do things together with them, or give our time and energy for their sake. But if warm-fuzzies is all that we mean by love, it winds up being pretty shallow and lame.
In a fallen world, it comes to seem that any love worthy of the name inevitably has a tragic aspect about it. We are all fallen, broken persons, and our fallen-ness and broken-ness redound to the pain of those who love us. And hobble our ability to love others as we ought. We inevitably hurt and disappoint those who love us, and in many ways, the measure of love is the manner in which it deals with those hurts and disappointments.
Our kids have taught some of this to Molly and me. When 1F was the ‘perfect’ adolescent, it was pretty easy to love her; to soak up the accolades we received for having raised such a wonderful girl. But, I don’t think I’ve ever been more deeply wounded than I was when she walked away from our family to live with the F-bomb. And I never, in my worst dreams, would have imagined one of my daughters having a baby out-of-wedlock. But, you know, in the ensuing years, I think we’ve come to a stronger love for each other. I found out that my heart could bear more pain than I thought it could, and that I loved my daughter even though she had hurt me like I’d never imagined I could be hurt.
Likewise for 3M – it was easy to love him when he was a cute and precocious child, when we got appreciative pats on the back for his wit and intelligence. But when he ran away from home, and defied us in every possible way, he simply broke our hearts. And such is the tragic aspect of love – real, down-and-dirty, harsh, dreadful love. He is not today what I would really want him to be, but I think we have learned to love each other for who we are, apart from any questions about ‘approval’.
All of our kids, in one way or another, have suffered from my (and, I suppose, Molly’s, although even to say so evokes thoughts of the Log and the Speck; besides which, it feels like ‘talking behind her back’) failures of love. 1F and 3M are just the glaring, nuclear examples. 2F suffers greatly to this day that we didn’t love her as she needed us to – that we were so dazzled by her sister’s ‘perfection’, and too easily put off by her more strong-willed personality. 4M can be a male version of 1F – ‘perfect’, except when he thinks we’re not looking. 5M too easily gets lost in the chaos that swirls around his older siblings, and 6F has had to endure all manner of trials that we wished we could have been more effective in helping her through. But perhaps we are learning, just a little bit better, what it means to love. Perhaps we can dig a little deeper, and give our kids the love they need, where once we’d have come up short. Perhaps. At least, I hope so. . .
It’s not just the kids, either. As much as I love Molly (and she me), there is, even still, a tragic aspect to our love. She has not avoided disappointing me (or, to be certain, I her), even though she is still the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. Some part of the measure of our love is coming to know – really know, where it hurts to know – each other’s weaknesses and character flaws, and keep moving forward. Even to cover for each other’s weaknesses (whether or not we ever thought we should have to).
So, again - the measure of our love is not the absence of our disappointments with each other. The measure of our love is what we DO with the inevitable hurts and disappointments that we inflict on each other – can we let “love cover a multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8), or not?
And then we have the example of God Himself, who “demonstrates His own love for us in this – while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus didn’t wait for us to get our shit together in order to make a gift of Himself for our sake. He loved us, “to the end,” even in all our fallen, broken, garbage.
In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said that, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” And I think it’s likewise when it comes to ‘learning what it really means to love’. To love greatly is to risk being hurt greatly. To ‘pour ourselves out’ for the sake of the beloved, with little or no regard for what we have left when we’re done.
“And greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Jesus, with all trepidation, I ask of you. . . teach me how to love. . .
Simon & Garfunkel
“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing, compared with love in dreams.”
Dostoevsky
“[Jesus], having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
The Gospel of John, chapter 13, verse 1
Mother Theresa was fond of saying that our main task in this life is learning what it really means to love. She was also fond of saying that there is no spiritual growth without suffering. And I’ve come to understand that the two – love and suffering – are not so very separate from each other.
I think we’re sort of conditioned by our culture to think of love in terms of mellow warm feelings toward another person – taking pleasure in their presence in our lives, wanting to do things together with them, or give our time and energy for their sake. But if warm-fuzzies is all that we mean by love, it winds up being pretty shallow and lame.
In a fallen world, it comes to seem that any love worthy of the name inevitably has a tragic aspect about it. We are all fallen, broken persons, and our fallen-ness and broken-ness redound to the pain of those who love us. And hobble our ability to love others as we ought. We inevitably hurt and disappoint those who love us, and in many ways, the measure of love is the manner in which it deals with those hurts and disappointments.
Our kids have taught some of this to Molly and me. When 1F was the ‘perfect’ adolescent, it was pretty easy to love her; to soak up the accolades we received for having raised such a wonderful girl. But, I don’t think I’ve ever been more deeply wounded than I was when she walked away from our family to live with the F-bomb. And I never, in my worst dreams, would have imagined one of my daughters having a baby out-of-wedlock. But, you know, in the ensuing years, I think we’ve come to a stronger love for each other. I found out that my heart could bear more pain than I thought it could, and that I loved my daughter even though she had hurt me like I’d never imagined I could be hurt.
Likewise for 3M – it was easy to love him when he was a cute and precocious child, when we got appreciative pats on the back for his wit and intelligence. But when he ran away from home, and defied us in every possible way, he simply broke our hearts. And such is the tragic aspect of love – real, down-and-dirty, harsh, dreadful love. He is not today what I would really want him to be, but I think we have learned to love each other for who we are, apart from any questions about ‘approval’.
All of our kids, in one way or another, have suffered from my (and, I suppose, Molly’s, although even to say so evokes thoughts of the Log and the Speck; besides which, it feels like ‘talking behind her back’) failures of love. 1F and 3M are just the glaring, nuclear examples. 2F suffers greatly to this day that we didn’t love her as she needed us to – that we were so dazzled by her sister’s ‘perfection’, and too easily put off by her more strong-willed personality. 4M can be a male version of 1F – ‘perfect’, except when he thinks we’re not looking. 5M too easily gets lost in the chaos that swirls around his older siblings, and 6F has had to endure all manner of trials that we wished we could have been more effective in helping her through. But perhaps we are learning, just a little bit better, what it means to love. Perhaps we can dig a little deeper, and give our kids the love they need, where once we’d have come up short. Perhaps. At least, I hope so. . .
It’s not just the kids, either. As much as I love Molly (and she me), there is, even still, a tragic aspect to our love. She has not avoided disappointing me (or, to be certain, I her), even though she is still the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. Some part of the measure of our love is coming to know – really know, where it hurts to know – each other’s weaknesses and character flaws, and keep moving forward. Even to cover for each other’s weaknesses (whether or not we ever thought we should have to).
So, again - the measure of our love is not the absence of our disappointments with each other. The measure of our love is what we DO with the inevitable hurts and disappointments that we inflict on each other – can we let “love cover a multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8), or not?
And then we have the example of God Himself, who “demonstrates His own love for us in this – while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus didn’t wait for us to get our shit together in order to make a gift of Himself for our sake. He loved us, “to the end,” even in all our fallen, broken, garbage.
In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said that, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” And I think it’s likewise when it comes to ‘learning what it really means to love’. To love greatly is to risk being hurt greatly. To ‘pour ourselves out’ for the sake of the beloved, with little or no regard for what we have left when we’re done.
“And greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Jesus, with all trepidation, I ask of you. . . teach me how to love. . .
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
The Love of My Life
A blogger recently wrote me an e-mail, in which she said, among other things, “You entered into marriage with the love of your life.” And I know what she is talking about. Molly is indeed The Love of My Life, and blessed am I because of it.
A few years ago, Molly began a little daily tradition - when I would come home at the end of the day and she heard the back door open just before dinner-time, she'd call out, “Is that The Love of My Life?” Which was (is) wonderfully heart-warming for me. I usually respond by saying, “I sure hope so!” And in recent years, the younger kids have joined in the fun. So that, these days, when I open the back door, 8M will usually come running; when he sees that it’s me, he’ll run to Molly, calling out as he goes, “Mom! It’s The Love of Your Life! The Love of Your Life is home!” It doesn’t get any better than that, let me tell you.
But, truth to tell, I didn’t marry the Love of My Life; I’m married to the Love of My Life, but she wasn’t that when we got married. Some of you actually did marry the Love of Your Life – your high-school sweetheart, maybe, or someone whom you just knew, within minutes of your first meeting, would end up sharing your life with you. That wasn’t the case for Molly and me. When we got married, I was marrying a very good friend, someone with whom I shared several important life goals and aims, with whom I got along very well, and whose company I enjoyed enough to think that we could actually have a life together. She agreed with me enough to accept my proposal; we got married, and la, la, how the life went on.
It’s almost funny to look back on it now, but Molly still tells people that our first year of marriage was the worst year of her life. Her adjustment to the new ‘life-together’ was a bit harder than mine, I guess. . .
But, somewhere along the line, over the ensuing 25 years, she became the Love of My Life. We put in the necessary work, we shared our lives, we suffered together, and in the process of all that, our two lives became one, to the point that I can’t imagine my life without her. This woman, whom I liked and admired way back when, has proven to be even more solid, more admirable, and more amazingly wonderful than I thought she was.
God is good. . .
(9 comments)
A few years ago, Molly began a little daily tradition - when I would come home at the end of the day and she heard the back door open just before dinner-time, she'd call out, “Is that The Love of My Life?” Which was (is) wonderfully heart-warming for me. I usually respond by saying, “I sure hope so!” And in recent years, the younger kids have joined in the fun. So that, these days, when I open the back door, 8M will usually come running; when he sees that it’s me, he’ll run to Molly, calling out as he goes, “Mom! It’s The Love of Your Life! The Love of Your Life is home!” It doesn’t get any better than that, let me tell you.
But, truth to tell, I didn’t marry the Love of My Life; I’m married to the Love of My Life, but she wasn’t that when we got married. Some of you actually did marry the Love of Your Life – your high-school sweetheart, maybe, or someone whom you just knew, within minutes of your first meeting, would end up sharing your life with you. That wasn’t the case for Molly and me. When we got married, I was marrying a very good friend, someone with whom I shared several important life goals and aims, with whom I got along very well, and whose company I enjoyed enough to think that we could actually have a life together. She agreed with me enough to accept my proposal; we got married, and la, la, how the life went on.
It’s almost funny to look back on it now, but Molly still tells people that our first year of marriage was the worst year of her life. Her adjustment to the new ‘life-together’ was a bit harder than mine, I guess. . .
But, somewhere along the line, over the ensuing 25 years, she became the Love of My Life. We put in the necessary work, we shared our lives, we suffered together, and in the process of all that, our two lives became one, to the point that I can’t imagine my life without her. This woman, whom I liked and admired way back when, has proven to be even more solid, more admirable, and more amazingly wonderful than I thought she was.
God is good. . .
(9 comments)
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Only My Love Does It Good To Me
There are times when I’m simply overwhelmed by the wonderful-ness of my wife. Times when I just look at her and ask myself, “How is it that the most amazing woman in the universe threw her life in with me?” And I’m just in awe of my good fortune.
There might be a few women in the world (stress on ‘might’ and ‘few’) who are physically more beautiful than Molly, but when I consider the strength of her character, the beauty of her soul and spirit, she blows them all away. I’ll say it again – she is the most amazing woman in the universe. I almost feel bad for the rest of you guys that she’s my wife. Almost.
And the thing is, I’m well aware that I did nothing in particular to deserve her. I’m still not real sure why, all those years ago, she brought that rubber ball to me, when it seems like there must have been lots of more desirable guys than me available to her. But I’m glad she did. I’ve described previously how we knew each other pretty well before we ever got to the point of courtship. And that’s what’s most amazing of all to me – she’s told me many times how God told her, before I even proposed to her, “What you see is what you get with him.” She had a pretty good, sober assessment of my character. AND SHE STILL MARRIED ME! That blows me away, and I’m grateful for it every single day I’m married to her.
And even now, after 26 years, I’m still blown away. She knows me way better now than she did back then, and she still throws her life in with mine. For all the clear-eyed, sober appraisal of my character she had when we were courting, there are lots of things, not all of them good, that she’s only learned from living with me for 26 years. And she still stays married to me. Amazing!
“Somewhere in my wicked, miserable past, I must have done something good.”
Simply flat-out amazing.
(5 comments)
There might be a few women in the world (stress on ‘might’ and ‘few’) who are physically more beautiful than Molly, but when I consider the strength of her character, the beauty of her soul and spirit, she blows them all away. I’ll say it again – she is the most amazing woman in the universe. I almost feel bad for the rest of you guys that she’s my wife. Almost.
And the thing is, I’m well aware that I did nothing in particular to deserve her. I’m still not real sure why, all those years ago, she brought that rubber ball to me, when it seems like there must have been lots of more desirable guys than me available to her. But I’m glad she did. I’ve described previously how we knew each other pretty well before we ever got to the point of courtship. And that’s what’s most amazing of all to me – she’s told me many times how God told her, before I even proposed to her, “What you see is what you get with him.” She had a pretty good, sober assessment of my character. AND SHE STILL MARRIED ME! That blows me away, and I’m grateful for it every single day I’m married to her.
And even now, after 26 years, I’m still blown away. She knows me way better now than she did back then, and she still throws her life in with mine. For all the clear-eyed, sober appraisal of my character she had when we were courting, there are lots of things, not all of them good, that she’s only learned from living with me for 26 years. And she still stays married to me. Amazing!
“Somewhere in my wicked, miserable past, I must have done something good.”
Simply flat-out amazing.
(5 comments)
Monday, October 30, 2006
Love Languages
Emily posted recently about Love Languages, specifically referencing Gary Chapman’s book. In recent years, I’ve had numerous conversations with Molly on that topic, and also several e-mail conversations, with FTN among others, in recent months.
Molly and I were discussing it the other night, and we came to an interesting conclusion, I think. As with all communication, there is both the sending and the receiving of messages in our ‘love-languages’. Thus, the wise lover needs to know his spouse’s love-language in both its sending and receiving modes.
That is, he needs to know what his spouse’s love-language is, (a) so he can speak it to her, but also (b) so that, when she speaks it to him, he can recognize and understand what she’s ‘saying’ to him. If I speak English, say, and Molly speaks Chinese (a not-entirely-inapt comparison), I need to understand Chinese so I can speak it to Molly, but also so that, when she speaks Chinese to me, I can understand what she’s saying. If I can speak Chinese to her, but can't understand when she speaks it to me, my understanding of Chinese is incomplete, at best.
Many years ago, there was a joint space mission between the US and the Soviet Union; in order to solve the 'communications problem', whenever the two crews were together, the Americans spoke Russian, and the Soviets spoke English. That kept things on a simple enough level; by placing the burden on the 'speakers', the strategy biased things in favor of the 'hearers' of the message. And, I suppose, that is similar to what we want to be doing with 'love-languages' - sending our love-messages in a language that we ourselves might speak imperfectly, but which the 'receivers' of our messages will easily understand. .
.
Alas, egocentric creatures that we are, we all tend to operate out of our own love-languages in both the sending and receiving modes. My love-language is ‘physical touch’; Molly’s is ‘acts of service’. Thus, my tendency is to express my love for Molly in lots of physical affection, but she’s inclined to receive love more easily if I give it to her by, say, sweeping the kitchen floor. Likewise, she shows her love for me by cooking for me and doing my laundry, whereas I would most easily recognize her love if she would initiate some steamy sex. So both of us have a ‘double-challenge’ – I need to learn how to give her ‘acts of service’, realizing that that’s how she’ll most easily receive the message, “I love you” from me, but it’s also extremely helpful if I understand that the cooking, cleaning, etc, that she does for me is directly expressing her love for me. Conversely, Molly needs to learn to give me the ‘physical’ messages that I easily understand, but it’s also helpful for her to recognize that the ‘physical’ messages I send her are a way that I show my love to her. We need to be sort of ‘bi-directionally bilingual’.
We can fail to communicate love in either way – by failing (or refusing) to ‘send’ messages to our spouse in the language they understand, or by failing to understand the messages our spouse sends us in their own language.
We have two friend-couples who illustrate the two sides of this. In Couple A, the husband’s ‘love-language’ is ‘words of affirmation’, but his wife is a fairly reticent woman, who, when she and her husband went through the book and he told her how he’d like her to treat him, said, “I can’t do that; it’s not natural for me.” So, she fails (refuses, really) to send her love-messages to her husband, because she won’t learn to speak his ‘language’. In Couple B, the husband loves to give his wife gifts – throw her elaborate parties, take her on exotic vacations, etc – but his wife wants no part of it, and is vocally critical of the waste of time, money, etc. So, while he is sending out love-messages in his own ‘love-language’, he might as well be speaking Swahili, because she doesn’t ‘get it’. (Now, I’m not meaning to imply here that these ‘failures to communicate’ are always the wife’s fault; those are just the two examples that came up in our conversation. I’m sure that the failures are sufficiently reciprocal; or, if anything, that men are more clueless than women – that would hardly be surprising, would it?)
So, at the end of the day, my point is this: when we learn about the concept of ‘love-languages’, it’s easy to complain that “my spouse can’t/won’t speak my love-language”; but we can mitigate the problem, at least to some extent, by recognizing our spouse’s love-language when they speak it to us. Even if it’s not the ‘language’ we prefer to hear. It’s nice to hear “I love you” in Italian or French, but if our spouse says it to us in German or Russian, it helps if we can understand what she’s saying.
And even Germans and Russians can figure out how to be happily married, can't they?
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And, in a couple days, I'm sure I'll be able to step back and appreciate the wonderful season my Tigers had. But, for cryin' out loud - HOW FREAKIN' HARD IS IT TO THROW THE DAMN BALL TO THIRD BASE?!?
OK, I'm better now. . . I think. . .check back with me in a couple days. . .
(12 comments)
Molly and I were discussing it the other night, and we came to an interesting conclusion, I think. As with all communication, there is both the sending and the receiving of messages in our ‘love-languages’. Thus, the wise lover needs to know his spouse’s love-language in both its sending and receiving modes.
That is, he needs to know what his spouse’s love-language is, (a) so he can speak it to her, but also (b) so that, when she speaks it to him, he can recognize and understand what she’s ‘saying’ to him. If I speak English, say, and Molly speaks Chinese (a not-entirely-inapt comparison), I need to understand Chinese so I can speak it to Molly, but also so that, when she speaks Chinese to me, I can understand what she’s saying. If I can speak Chinese to her, but can't understand when she speaks it to me, my understanding of Chinese is incomplete, at best.
Many years ago, there was a joint space mission between the US and the Soviet Union; in order to solve the 'communications problem', whenever the two crews were together, the Americans spoke Russian, and the Soviets spoke English. That kept things on a simple enough level; by placing the burden on the 'speakers', the strategy biased things in favor of the 'hearers' of the message. And, I suppose, that is similar to what we want to be doing with 'love-languages' - sending our love-messages in a language that we ourselves might speak imperfectly, but which the 'receivers' of our messages will easily understand. .
.
Alas, egocentric creatures that we are, we all tend to operate out of our own love-languages in both the sending and receiving modes. My love-language is ‘physical touch’; Molly’s is ‘acts of service’. Thus, my tendency is to express my love for Molly in lots of physical affection, but she’s inclined to receive love more easily if I give it to her by, say, sweeping the kitchen floor. Likewise, she shows her love for me by cooking for me and doing my laundry, whereas I would most easily recognize her love if she would initiate some steamy sex. So both of us have a ‘double-challenge’ – I need to learn how to give her ‘acts of service’, realizing that that’s how she’ll most easily receive the message, “I love you” from me, but it’s also extremely helpful if I understand that the cooking, cleaning, etc, that she does for me is directly expressing her love for me. Conversely, Molly needs to learn to give me the ‘physical’ messages that I easily understand, but it’s also helpful for her to recognize that the ‘physical’ messages I send her are a way that I show my love to her. We need to be sort of ‘bi-directionally bilingual’.
We can fail to communicate love in either way – by failing (or refusing) to ‘send’ messages to our spouse in the language they understand, or by failing to understand the messages our spouse sends us in their own language.
We have two friend-couples who illustrate the two sides of this. In Couple A, the husband’s ‘love-language’ is ‘words of affirmation’, but his wife is a fairly reticent woman, who, when she and her husband went through the book and he told her how he’d like her to treat him, said, “I can’t do that; it’s not natural for me.” So, she fails (refuses, really) to send her love-messages to her husband, because she won’t learn to speak his ‘language’. In Couple B, the husband loves to give his wife gifts – throw her elaborate parties, take her on exotic vacations, etc – but his wife wants no part of it, and is vocally critical of the waste of time, money, etc. So, while he is sending out love-messages in his own ‘love-language’, he might as well be speaking Swahili, because she doesn’t ‘get it’. (Now, I’m not meaning to imply here that these ‘failures to communicate’ are always the wife’s fault; those are just the two examples that came up in our conversation. I’m sure that the failures are sufficiently reciprocal; or, if anything, that men are more clueless than women – that would hardly be surprising, would it?)
So, at the end of the day, my point is this: when we learn about the concept of ‘love-languages’, it’s easy to complain that “my spouse can’t/won’t speak my love-language”; but we can mitigate the problem, at least to some extent, by recognizing our spouse’s love-language when they speak it to us. Even if it’s not the ‘language’ we prefer to hear. It’s nice to hear “I love you” in Italian or French, but if our spouse says it to us in German or Russian, it helps if we can understand what she’s saying.
And even Germans and Russians can figure out how to be happily married, can't they?
-------------------------
And, in a couple days, I'm sure I'll be able to step back and appreciate the wonderful season my Tigers had. But, for cryin' out loud - HOW FREAKIN' HARD IS IT TO THROW THE DAMN BALL TO THIRD BASE?!?
OK, I'm better now. . . I think. . .check back with me in a couple days. . .
(12 comments)
Friday, September 29, 2006
With My Body, I Thee Worship - A Molly's-Eye View
OK, we’re all in for a treat today. Molly read my ‘With My Body, I Thee Worship’ post, and she had some definite thoughts of her own. I asked her to write them down to post here, and she did. So, without further ado, I bring you my wife, Molly Jones. . .
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With my body, I thee worship.
I love this phrase because it captures, stunningly, the spiritual nature of my intimate relationship with my husband. When one speaks of worship, something holy is being talked about. Sex, holy? Oh, yes; so, so yes. It is from, through, for, with and about God (communion of persons; an image of Christ and His Church).
People know this intuitively. Sex is one of the deepest pleasures of human experience (some would say it's the deepest pleasure). Being conscious of that truth, I can give myself completely to my husband. We are refreshed, renewed, and, in a real way, more tightly cemented together. We marvel together at how it just keeps getting better and better.
Not without struggle and work, though – “Would you please stop reading those sex books; they make me feel slimy”; “You want to try what?” Oh, okay; I’ll give it a try. . . And a few weeks later – you know, I kinda like that!
You see, it’s because it’s not about me, it’s about my husband – how can I show my love for him? Just like worshipping God is not about me, it’s about God. Of course, there are distractions, irritations and setbacks, but they’re ever so brief because the good is so very good. Neither of us can stand to hang around in the muck for very long.
To me, “with my body, I thee worship” means all the time, not just in bed. Kinda like worshipping God is not just in church, but it’s how one lives. So, with my body (and really, my whole self), I work very hard at domestic stuff – cooking, cleaning, laundry – and with my mind and my voice, I work at expressing honor, dignity and reverence in how I think and speak about my husband. (It just makes me cringe when I hear women disparage their own husbands.) You see, my thoughts give rise to my actions. . .
But we aren’t this ‘ideal’ couple; we don’t live ‘in the clouds’, and we’re not meaning to be ‘holier-than-thou’. We’ve just been given a great grace. . .
Vince Lombardi said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all” (hey, with five sons, we talk about football a lot at our house). A while ago, I just got tired of cooking (I’m sure Des has mentioned all the cooking I’m doing to support his weight loss), and I was getting resentful and martyr-y; it actually went on for a day or two. Quite ugly, really; I don’t like myself when I’m selfish. I don’t even remember how we got out of it. Maybe he was responding in kind and it shocked me, maybe I just got some extra sleep, or maybe we had some wonderful intimacy. . . but we got over it.
The thing is, it’s also a great grace just to see things for what they are. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And the truth is, I love my husband, and he loves me. And my love for him is a conscious choice every day.
Someone asked if I feel the same way about Desmond as he feels about me; probably not the same – we’re different people. I love him as an expression of who I am, and he loves me as an expression of who he is.
But, “with my body, I thee worship” – yes; oh, yes!
(8 comments)
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With my body, I thee worship.
I love this phrase because it captures, stunningly, the spiritual nature of my intimate relationship with my husband. When one speaks of worship, something holy is being talked about. Sex, holy? Oh, yes; so, so yes. It is from, through, for, with and about God (communion of persons; an image of Christ and His Church).
People know this intuitively. Sex is one of the deepest pleasures of human experience (some would say it's the deepest pleasure). Being conscious of that truth, I can give myself completely to my husband. We are refreshed, renewed, and, in a real way, more tightly cemented together. We marvel together at how it just keeps getting better and better.
Not without struggle and work, though – “Would you please stop reading those sex books; they make me feel slimy”; “You want to try what?” Oh, okay; I’ll give it a try. . . And a few weeks later – you know, I kinda like that!
You see, it’s because it’s not about me, it’s about my husband – how can I show my love for him? Just like worshipping God is not about me, it’s about God. Of course, there are distractions, irritations and setbacks, but they’re ever so brief because the good is so very good. Neither of us can stand to hang around in the muck for very long.
To me, “with my body, I thee worship” means all the time, not just in bed. Kinda like worshipping God is not just in church, but it’s how one lives. So, with my body (and really, my whole self), I work very hard at domestic stuff – cooking, cleaning, laundry – and with my mind and my voice, I work at expressing honor, dignity and reverence in how I think and speak about my husband. (It just makes me cringe when I hear women disparage their own husbands.) You see, my thoughts give rise to my actions. . .
But we aren’t this ‘ideal’ couple; we don’t live ‘in the clouds’, and we’re not meaning to be ‘holier-than-thou’. We’ve just been given a great grace. . .
Vince Lombardi said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all” (hey, with five sons, we talk about football a lot at our house). A while ago, I just got tired of cooking (I’m sure Des has mentioned all the cooking I’m doing to support his weight loss), and I was getting resentful and martyr-y; it actually went on for a day or two. Quite ugly, really; I don’t like myself when I’m selfish. I don’t even remember how we got out of it. Maybe he was responding in kind and it shocked me, maybe I just got some extra sleep, or maybe we had some wonderful intimacy. . . but we got over it.
The thing is, it’s also a great grace just to see things for what they are. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And the truth is, I love my husband, and he loves me. And my love for him is a conscious choice every day.
Someone asked if I feel the same way about Desmond as he feels about me; probably not the same – we’re different people. I love him as an expression of who I am, and he loves me as an expression of who he is.
But, “with my body, I thee worship” – yes; oh, yes!
(8 comments)
Monday, September 18, 2006
With My Body, I Thee Worship
A while back, a phrase came into my mind (phrases do that to me, from time to time; it's my cross to bear), and it hasn’t left me alone ever since. I think it’s from an old form of the Anglican wedding service (incredibly geeky, I know, but what can I do?). Anyway, at one point during the vows, the bridegroom says to the bride: “With my body, I thee worship.”
With my body, I thee worship.
There is a real depth there, a real richness, that goes beyond merely “I love you,” or even, “I want to have a life and a family with you,” although those things are certainly included in it. It captures very well how I feel about my wife, and how I aspire to have my life be joined to hers.
On multiple levels, sex is an act of worship – Catholics would invoke the grace of the sacrament of Matrimony. But in a simpler, earthy sense, I can simply say that I mean to worship Molly. Not, obviously, in the same sense in which I worship God – I would mean something like ‘reverence’, or ‘venerate’, or ‘honor’ or ‘esteem’, but none of those words capture the full sense of what I mean the way that ‘worship’ does. Molly is worthy of veneration, just like, say, Catholic theology would say the saints are worthy of veneration, but she is the saint whose life is bound up with mine.
GK Chesterton wrote that being constrained to one woman was a small price to pay for the privilege of having even one woman, and that sense of reverential gratitude resonates deeply with me. Getting to know Molly – really know her – is like being let in on a great mystery. As a Christian, I want to go “further up and further in” – grow deeper in my love of God, and give myself more fully to Him. In an analogous way, I want to ‘go deeper’ in our marriage, and the life we have together. I want to know her better, be known better by her, give my life more fully to her, and that begins to get at the ‘worship’ I aim to give her.
In Holy Communion, Catholics believe that we receive Christ directly into our bodies (there is a very earthy aspect to Catholic theology that I find immensely appealing). In an analogous way, we give ourselves, and receive each other, directly into our bodies when we make love, under the covering of the sacrament of Matrimony. It’s all so rich, I can scarcely say what I really mean.
With my body, I thee worship.
Awesome.
(8 comments)
With my body, I thee worship.
There is a real depth there, a real richness, that goes beyond merely “I love you,” or even, “I want to have a life and a family with you,” although those things are certainly included in it. It captures very well how I feel about my wife, and how I aspire to have my life be joined to hers.
On multiple levels, sex is an act of worship – Catholics would invoke the grace of the sacrament of Matrimony. But in a simpler, earthy sense, I can simply say that I mean to worship Molly. Not, obviously, in the same sense in which I worship God – I would mean something like ‘reverence’, or ‘venerate’, or ‘honor’ or ‘esteem’, but none of those words capture the full sense of what I mean the way that ‘worship’ does. Molly is worthy of veneration, just like, say, Catholic theology would say the saints are worthy of veneration, but she is the saint whose life is bound up with mine.
GK Chesterton wrote that being constrained to one woman was a small price to pay for the privilege of having even one woman, and that sense of reverential gratitude resonates deeply with me. Getting to know Molly – really know her – is like being let in on a great mystery. As a Christian, I want to go “further up and further in” – grow deeper in my love of God, and give myself more fully to Him. In an analogous way, I want to ‘go deeper’ in our marriage, and the life we have together. I want to know her better, be known better by her, give my life more fully to her, and that begins to get at the ‘worship’ I aim to give her.
In Holy Communion, Catholics believe that we receive Christ directly into our bodies (there is a very earthy aspect to Catholic theology that I find immensely appealing). In an analogous way, we give ourselves, and receive each other, directly into our bodies when we make love, under the covering of the sacrament of Matrimony. It’s all so rich, I can scarcely say what I really mean.
With my body, I thee worship.
Awesome.
(8 comments)
Friday, September 15, 2006
Duty and Love
I am a big fan of the notion of duty. As much as many bloggers place duty and love in opposition, I think that duty is of the essence of love, and vice versa. We take on duties because of love. I will get up in the middle of the night with a sick child because I love my child. I don’t particularly ‘want’ to (especially if it involves cleaning up any fluids emitted from the child’s body); I’m certainly not ‘passionate’ about tending to sick children (someone else might be, but I’m not), but because I love my child, I do my ‘duty’. A soldier will die for his country because it's his duty, but it's his love for his family, friends, neighbors, homeland, whatever, that makes him feel it as a duty. My own father has lived practically his whole life out of a sense of duty, and as I've grown older myself, I am increasingly in awe of how much he loved his family, even though passionate he is decidedly not. . .
We both love the song, 'Do You Love Me?' from Fiddler on the Roof. After 25 years of shared life, mutual service and pulling together in a common endeavor, what do you know - Golde and Tevye find that they love each other, even though they had never particularly thought about it before. I know that that idea absolutely runs against the grain of modern culture, but it contains more than a grain of truth - that marriage is built on a foundation of mutual commitment and, dare I say, duty, much more securely than it is on passion and emotion. And what about 'love'? "It doesn't change a thing, but even so - after 25 years, it's nice to know."
Now, duty can be done in lots of ways – happily, straightforwardly, grudgingly, etc, etc. If my kids are going to whine and bitch about doing the dishes, I'd rather do them myself (except that they aren't about to be let off that easy).
So I guess, at the most fundamental level, my point would be that ‘duty’ has a lot more to do with 'love' (if not exactly ‘passion’) than meets the eye. . .
(5 comments)
We both love the song, 'Do You Love Me?' from Fiddler on the Roof. After 25 years of shared life, mutual service and pulling together in a common endeavor, what do you know - Golde and Tevye find that they love each other, even though they had never particularly thought about it before. I know that that idea absolutely runs against the grain of modern culture, but it contains more than a grain of truth - that marriage is built on a foundation of mutual commitment and, dare I say, duty, much more securely than it is on passion and emotion. And what about 'love'? "It doesn't change a thing, but even so - after 25 years, it's nice to know."
Now, duty can be done in lots of ways – happily, straightforwardly, grudgingly, etc, etc. If my kids are going to whine and bitch about doing the dishes, I'd rather do them myself (except that they aren't about to be let off that easy).
So I guess, at the most fundamental level, my point would be that ‘duty’ has a lot more to do with 'love' (if not exactly ‘passion’) than meets the eye. . .
(5 comments)
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