Tag Archives: marriage

Daily Riches (CV era): You and Your Partner–Sheltering in Place (Alain de Botton and Krista Tippett)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, coronavirus, Ego Issues, Loving Well, Marriage, Wholeness and Brokenness

“One of the first important truths is, you’re crazy. Not you, as it were; all of us, that all of us are deeply damaged people. The great enemy of love, good relationships, good friendships, is self-righteousness. If we start by accepting that of course we’re only just holding it together, and in many ways, really quite challenging people . . . . I think if somebody thinks that they’re easy to live with, they’re by definition going to be pretty hard [to live with] and don’t have much of an understanding of themselves. I think there’s a certain wisdom that begins by knowing that of course you, like everyone else, are pretty difficult. And this knowledge is very shielded from us. Our parents don’t tell us, our ex-lovers—they knew it, but they couldn’t be bothered to tell us. They sacked us without . . . [Krista: by the time they tell us, we’re dismissing what they say anyway.] That’s right. And our friends don’t tell us because they just want a pleasant evening with us. So we’re left with a bubble of ignorance about our own natures. And often, you can be way into your 40s before you’re starting to get a sense of, ‘Well, maybe some of the problem is in me.’ Because of course, it’s so intuitive to think that of course it’s the other person. So to begin with that sense of, ‘I’m quite tricky and in these ways.’ That’s a very important starting point for being good at love. So often we blame our lovers; we don’t blame our view of love. So we keep sacking our lovers and blowing up relationships all in pursuit of this idea of love which actually has no basis in reality. [Krista: This right person, this creature does not exist.] And [this idea of love] is, in fact, the enemy of good enough relationships.” Alain de Botton in a conversation with Krista Tippett

“Cast all your anxiety on [God]
because [God] cares for you.”
1 Peter 5:7 NIV

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you just “holding it together in many ways?” Does your partner know that you know this?
  • Do you assume that “sheltering in place” would be easy if not for your difficult partner?
  • Can you take a deep breath and consider how difficult you can be? . . . how complicated your partner may be (how needy, broken, well intentioned)? . . . how skewed both of your ideas of love may be?

Abba, help me to understand, and remember, how tricky it is to live with me–and love me.

For More: The Course of Love by Alain du Botton

 

Daily Riches: The Madness and Meaning of Love (Thomas Moore)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, darkness and doubt, Death Daily, Desolation's Gift, Downward Mobility, Ego Issues, Embracing Losses and Limits, Loving Well, Marriage, Mystery, Spiritual Formation, Suffering and Grace, the dark night of the soul

“Love is also a kind of madness. It seals you in a bubble of fantasy where emotions are intense. You feel unbalanced. You do silly things. Your sense of responsibility disappears. You are deaf to the reasonable advice of friends and family. In your delirium you may get married or pregnant. Then you spend years in the aftermath trying to make a reasonable life. At any point you may fall into a dark night of the soul created by the profound unsettling that love leaves in its wake. . . . After years of practicing psychotherapy with men and women of all ages, I am convinced that love is the most common source of our dark nights. . . . The lure is strong, but the darkness is intense. It is as though love always has two parts, or two sides, like the moon, a light one and a dark one. In all our loves we have little idea of what is going on and what is demanded of us. Love has little to do with ego and is beyond understanding and control. It has its own reasons and its own indirect ways of getting what it wants. . . . You surrender, and then the spell descends and you get swept away by days and nights of fantasy, memory and longing, and a strange sensation of loss, perhaps the end of freedom and of a comfortable life. Even if you have had experiences of painful and unsuccessful love, you don’t give up on it. The soul so hungers for love that you go after it, even if there is only the slightest chance of succeeding. . . . Clearly love is not about making you happy. It is a form of initiation that may radically transform you, making you more of who you are but less of who you have been. If you don’t realize that you are walking on coals and running the gauntlet and surviving the wilderness in quest of vision–all within the comforts of a simple human relationship–you could be undone by it. Love gives you a sense of meaning, but it asks a price. It will make you into the person you are called to be, but only if you endure its pains and allow it to empty you as much as it fills you.” Thomas Moore

“The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again . . . .
Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods . . . .’”
Hosea 3:1 NIV

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • “The lure [of love] is strong, but the darkness is intense.” Do you typically remember that?
  • Moore says, “Clearly love is not about making you happy.” Does that even make sense? If it’s true, what does it mean?
  • Are you willing to “pay the price” that love demands?

Abba, as we love, help us to see past the fantasies to the opportunities.

For More: The Dark Nights Of The Soul by Thomas Moore

Daily Riches: Staying At Marriage (Wendell Berry)

Posted on by under darkness and doubt, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, God's Grace, Loving Well, Marriage, the importance of stability, Waiting on God

“The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words. We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving, for in joining ourselves to one another we join ourselves to the unknown. We can join one another only by joining the unknown. We must not be misled by the procedures of experimental thought: in life, in the world, we are never given two known results to choose between, but only one result that we choose without knowing what it is. . . . Because the condition of marriage is worldly and its meaning communal, no one party to it can be solely in charge. What you alone think it ought to be, it is not going to be. Where you alone think you want it to go, it is not going to go. It is going where the two of you—and marriage, time, life, history, and the world—will take it. You do not know the road; you have committed your life to a way. . . . The Zen student, the poet, the husband, the wife—none knows with certainty what he or she is staying for, but all know the likelihood that they will be staying ‘a while’: to find out what they are staying for. And it is the faith of all of these disciplines that they will not stay to find that they should not have stayed. As the traditional marriage ceremony insists, not everything that we stay to find out will make us happy. The faith, rather, is that by staying, and only by staying, we will learn something of the truth, that the truth is good to know, and that it is always both different and larger than we thought.” Wendell Berry

“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven,
Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”
Luke 9:51 NLT

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Did you enter marriage thinking you knew what to expect? Don’t most of us marry with illusions?
  • In staying at marriage we may learn something “different and larger than we thought.” If you’re married, what has that meant for you?
  • Think about Jesus’ life from the point of view of “staying.” What does his example show?

Abba, what do you want me to discover as I stay?

For More: Standing by Words: Essays by Wendell Berry

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Daily Riches: Stability–Looking for God Where You Are (Paul Wilkes, Lynne Baab, and Amy Peterson)

Posted on by under Asceticism, contemplative virtues, darkness and doubt, dissent and resistance, Embracing Losses and Limits, Hurry Sickness, monasticism, Spiritual Formation, the importance of stability, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, Waiting on God

“The first vow laid out in Benedict’s Rule is stability. To a monk or sister, it means being committed to stay in this particular monastic house with these particular people. It means being willing to look for God here in the constancy of this place in this rhythm of life, rather than seeking God in ever-changing places and varied routines. In Beyond the Walls: Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Life, Paul Wilkes calls stability a ‘sense of where you are,’ and he believes that our disjointed lives and fragmented society present ample evidence that we desperately need to embrace stability. ‘What was needed, Benedict taught, was maddeningly simple. It was a commitment to trust in God’s goodness–that he was indeed there, in that very place; and that holiness, happiness, and human fulfillment were to be found, not tomorrow or over the hill, but here–today. . . . Stability’s goal is that we might see the inner truth of who we are and [where] we are going. That we might be still long enough to be joined intimately to the God who dwells within . . . . It is difficult–no, it is impossible–to find and maintain that center if our waking hours are a blur of mindless activity, without the presence and practice of stability in our lives.’” Lynne Baab

“I begin to wonder if I, like the brothers at Taize and the desert monks, need to learn the discipline of stability. Do I need roots, when this earth is not my home? That third instruction from Saint Anthony sinks like a seed into the dark recesses of my heart and lies dormant for a long time: ‘In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it.’” Amy Peterson

“So Boaz said to Ruth, ‘My daughter, listen to me.
Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here.
Stay here with the women who work for me.'”
Ruth 2:8 NIV

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you tend to give up too easily on a place? . . . a call? . . . a relationship?
  • Will you determine to “wait for the right moment?” . . . to wait for God’s permission before you decide to “move on?”

Abba, slow me down when my instinct is to flee.

For More: Beyond the Walls by Paul Wilkes

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Peterson, Amy. “Wanderlust: A Personal History.” Essay in The Other Journal: Geography, No. 24.
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Wilkes, Paul. Beyond the Walls: Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday, 1999.

Daily Riches: Seeing An Imperfect Person Perfectly (Søren Kierkegaard, John Eldridge, Hannah Hurnard and Tennessee Williams)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Ego Issues, Emotions and Spirituality, Forgiveness, Loving Well, Marriage

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” Søren Kierkegaard

“’She’s wilting’, a friend confessed to me about his new bride. ‘If she’s wilting then you’re withholding something.’ I said. Actually, it was several things–his words, his touch, but mostly his delight. There are so many other ways this plays out in life. A man who leaves his wife with the children and the bills to go and find another, easier life has denied them his strength. He has sacrificed them when he should have sacrificed his strength for them.” John Eldridge

” . . . Christlike love is created in us when we accept the hatred and the malice and the wrongdoing of others, and bear it, and through forgiveness, overcome and transform it.” . . . “If only disillusioned lovers would realize this and repent and change their thoughts yet a third time (not back to the first illusions), but to quite a different kind of thought, namely a longing to love and to be a helpmeet, and to rejoice in the creative power of love to change what is unlovely in others, and to delight in loving even if we are not loved in return; then all the hurt, humiliated, furious and resentful feelings of dislike or hate would change into compassion and loving desire to help the other partner.” Hannah Hurnard

“Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see . . . . Vanity, fear, desire, competition–all such distortions within our own egos–condition our vision of those in relation to us. Add to those distortions to our own egos the corresponding distortions in the egos of others, and you see how cloudy the glass must become through which we look at each other. That’s how it is in all living relationships except when there is that rare case of two people who love intensely enough to burn through all those layers of opacity and see each other’s naked hearts.” Tennessee Williams

“Love bears all things . . . .” 1 Corinthians 13:7 NIV

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you guilty of withholding what your spouse needs from you?
  • Are you attempting to be married without “sacrificing your strength” for your spouse? . . . without accepting and bearing with wrongdoing? . . . without giving up even if you are not loved in return?
  • Can you admit your ego-related flaws and ask God to help you begin again . . . to forgive and be forgiven?

Abba, may I follow Jesus in his way of loving.

For More: Wild At Heart by John Eldridge

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. Thanks for your interest! – Bill

 

Hurnard, Hannah. The Winged Life.
Williams, Tennessee. Selected Letters of . . . . (Vol. 2)

 

Daily Riches: What It Means to Love (Gary Thomas, Radiohead)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Forgiveness, Humility, Loving Well, Marriage

“If I could be who you wanted … all the time … all the time” Radiohead – “Fake Plastic Trees”

“’Gary, I kind of locked the keys in the car.’ I put down the phone, ready to drive over and bail Lisa out, but when I went to retrieve another set of keys, I noticed the empty hooks where we keep Lisa’s car keys. Apparently, Lisa had lost the last set. I had to go through her coats, her pants, her purse, her shoulder bags—anything I could think of—to find a key so I could get her home. Lisa is a lastborn, and she does lastborn things. She loses stuff. She ‘forgets’ her purse or leaves her wallet at the store.  …I grew up in a household where my mom had enough food, toilet paper, light-bulbs, and batteries stockpiled to last us at least a year. You could have stretched our supply of toilet paper from Seattle to Tacoma. Lisa shops from an entirely different perspective. She buys stuff a day or two (or occasionally a week or two) after we run out. Some mornings, it’s milk. Some nights, it’s toilet paper. Some afternoons, we’re out of keys. …I could read a how-to book that might tell me how to communicate my frustration. Lisa and I could have several talks about being more proactive. Maybe I could draw up charts, or we could try to redivide responsibilities. Or after two decades of marriage I could just accept that some things will never change, because they won’t. I can’t expect Lisa to become a different person just because she’s married to me—just as she must put up with countless episodes of my own quirks, limitations, and irritating qualities embedded in me as if they were encased in granite. Rather than let little disappointments and minor annoyances steal what is most important, it’s healthier to have a spiritual funeral and bury certain expectations. That, sometimes, is what it means to love.” Gary Thomas

“and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those
who sin against us.”
Jesus, in Matthew 6:12

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you expect your spouse to be like you? Consider what that might look like.
  • Did you enter marriage with realistic expectations? Do you have realistic expectations now?
  • If loving means simply ignoring a lot of bothersome things, are you a loving spouse?

Abba, if I could be who you wanted.

For More: Simply Sacred: Daily Readings by Gary Thomas

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to regularly share something of unique value with you in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: The Glorious Imperfection of the Present Moment (Maria Popova, Junichiro Tanizaki and Leonard Cohen)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, Uncategorized, Wholeness and Brokenness

There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen

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“Unlike the Western conception of beauty—a stylized fantasy constructed by airbrushing reality into a narrow and illusory ideal of perfection—the zenith of Japanese aesthetics is deeply rooted in the glorious imperfection of the present moment and its relationship to the realities of the past…. This temporal continuity of beauty, a counterpoint to the West’s neophilia, is central to Japanese aesthetics. Rather than fetishizing the new and shiny, the Japanese sensibility embraces the living legacy embedded in objects that have been used and loved for generations, seeing the process of aging as something that amplifies rather than muting the material’s inherent splendor. Luster becomes not an attractive quality but a symbol of shallowness, a vacant lack of history:

We find it hard to be really at home with things that shine and glitter. The Westerner uses silver and steel and nickel tableware, and polishes it to a fine brilliance, but we object to the practice… We begin to enjoy it only when the luster has worn off, when it has begun to take on a dark, smoky patina. Almost every householder has had to scold an insensitive maid who has polished away the tarnish so patiently waited for. …We do not dislike everything that shines, but we do prefer a pensive luster to a shallow brilliance, a murky light that, whether in a stone or an artifact, bespeaks a sheen of antiquity.

Tanizaki speaks affectionately of ‘the glow of grime,’ which ‘comes of being touched over and over’—a record of the tactile love an object has acquired through being caressed by human hands again and again.” Maria Popova quoting Junichiro Tanizaki

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My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”
Psalm 51:17

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay”
2 Corinthians 4:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Might you be guilty of “fetishizing the new and shiny?” …of “neophilia?”
  • Does this reading tempt you to think differently about beauty? …aging? …friendship? …marriage? …spirituality?
  • Why would anyone prefer a “luster” to a “brilliance?”

Abba, help me to appreciate “the glow of grime”–especially in myself and my fellow homo sapiens.

For More: In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and God seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to regularly share something of unique value with you in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest! Please leave a question or comment. – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: When You Want What This World Cannot Give (C. S. Lewis)

Posted on by under Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Marriage, thirsting and longing for God, Wholeness and Brokenness

“Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.” C. S. Lewis

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”
1 Peter 1:3-4

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Are you asking from your marriage, your family or your career something it can never give?
  • Can you be thankful for good things that are only “mirages” or pointers–even though they cannot help but disappoint?
  • Can you let those “echoes” do their work of encouraging you to “make it the main object of [your] life to press on to that other country” filled with realities only grasped at now?

Abba, my longings are ultimately for you. Let me look to you and be satisfied with you. You are enough. With you I have all that I need.

For more: Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you in 400 words or less. Thanks! –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Darkness As A Friend in Marriage (Alain De Botton)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Well, Marriage, Wholeness and Brokenness

“You know, some of the reason why we marry the wrong people is that we don’t really understand ourselves. I mean, sometimes I say to people, ‘Do you think you’re easy to live with?’ People who are single. And the ones who say, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m pretty easy to live with, it’s just a question of finding the right person.’–massive alarm bell rings in my mind. …And so we go into marriage unable to convey that knowledge to a partner. We don’t understand them. They don’t understand us. We don’t understand what marriage is. Let’s stress that. …Be incredibly forgiving for the weird behavior that’s going to start coming out. You will be very unhappy in lots of ways. Your partner will fail to understand you. If you’re understood in maybe, I don’t know, 60% of your soul by your partner, that’s fantastic. Don’t expect that it’s going to be 100%. Of course you will be lonely. You will often be in despair. You will sometimes think it’s the worst decision in your life. That’s fine. That’s not a sign your marriage has gone wrong. It’s a sign that it’s normal, it’s on track. And many of the hopes that took you into the marriage will have to die in order for the marriage to continue. That some of the headiness and expectations will have to die. …It’s very dark. But in love, darkness is a real friend of relationships. Because so many of the problems of love come from unwarranted optimism. And so we need to be dark about so many things. …I think that there are aspects of a good marriage that should encompass a kind of melancholy, as we realize that we’re trying to do such a complex thing with someone. We are trying to find our best friend, our ideal sexual partner, our co-household manager, perhaps our co-parent. And we’re expecting that all this will miraculously go well together. Of course it can’t. We’re not going to be able to get it all right. There will be many areas of misunderstanding and failure. And a certain amount of sober melancholy is a real asset when heading forth into the land of love.” Alain de Botton

“Most important of all,
continue to show deep love for each other,
for love covers a multitude of sins.”
1 Peter 4:8

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • What is your response to this very dark portrayal of married life?
  • Did you enter marriage with “unwarranted optimism?” If so, how exactly?
  • Can you accept that darkness, melancholy and despair might be part of your married experience? …a valuable part?

Abba, in the darkness may I find your light.

For More: Essays in Love by Alain de Botton

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Thanks for reading/sharing my blog! – Bill

 

Daily Riches: Perhaps the Biggest Shock of Marriage–Encountering Yourself (David Whyte, Larry Crabb, Edith Schaefer and Grant Howard)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Ego Issues, Embracing Losses and Limits, Humility, Loving Well, Marriage, Spiritual Formation, truth and illusion, Wholeness and Brokenness

“People throw away what they could have by insisting on perfection, which they cannot have, and looking for it where they will never find it.” Edith Schaefer

“At the heart of every marriage and every committed relationship, there dawns an elemental shock of realization, that we have made vows to a stranger whom we must now get to know; both in ourselves and in the other. Marriage is where we learn self-knowledge; where we realize that parts of our own makeup are even stranger than the stranger we have married or come to live with and just as difficult for another person to live and breathe with or come to know. Marriage is where we realize how much effort we have put into preserving our own sense of space, our own sense of self and our own cherished everyday rhythms. Marriage is where we realize how much we want to be right and seen to be right. Marriage is where all of these difficult revelations can consign us to a sense of imprisonment and distance or help us become larger, kinder, more generous, more amusing, more animated participants in the human drama.” David Whyte

“Every human relationship, especially where the participants long to experience deep closeness, encounters significant conflict. And there is simply no way through the conflict to true connection without divine power. There is no way through without an energy in the soul that is supplied by God, an energy that is stronger and better than the energy that is already there, fueling the conflict.” Larry Crabb

“We have a picture of the perfect partner, but we marry an imperfect person. Then we have two options. Tear up the picture and accept the person, or tear up the person and accept the picture.” Grant Howard

“This is the message you have heard from the beginning:
We should love one another.”
1 John 3:11

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you experienced the shocking “self-revelation” to which Whyte refers? If not, why not?
  • Have you made peace with your own limitations as a spouse? …with those of your partner?
  • Is your response to marriage to feel imprisoned or to be challenged to grow?
  • Are you aware of the absolute necessity of divine empowerment in your marriage?
  • Are you “tearing up” the picture, or the person?

Abba, use my marriage to make me larger, kinder, more generous, more amusing and more alive.

For More: The Three Marriages by David Whyte

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and God seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. I appreciate your interest! Please leave a comment or question. –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

 

Daily Riches: Marrying the Wrong Person (Alain de Botton)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Embracing Losses and Limits, Forgiveness, Humility, Loving Well, Marriage, truth and illusion, Wholeness and Brokenness

“We marry to make a nice feeling permanent. We imagine that marriage will help us to bottle the joy we felt when the thought of proposing first came to us: Perhaps we were in Venice, on the lagoon, in a motorboat, with the evening sun throwing glitter across the sea, chatting about aspects of our souls no one ever seemed to have grasped before, with the prospect of dinner in a risotto place a little later. We married to make such sensations permanent but failed to see that there was no solid connection between these feelings and the institution of marriage. Indeed, marriage tends decisively to move us onto another, very different and more administrative plane, which perhaps unfolds in a suburban house, with a long commute and maddening children who kill the passion from which they emerged. The only ingredient in common is the partner. And that might have been the wrong ingredient to bottle. The good news is that it doesn’t matter if we find we have married the wrong person. We mustn’t abandon him or her, only the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning. We need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us—and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this is unusual or grounds for divorce. Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for. …It might sound odd, but [it] relieves the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage. The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person and no sign that a union deserves to fail or be upgraded. The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently—the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the ‘not overly wrong’ person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition. Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not ‘normal.’ We should learn to accommodate ourselves to ‘wrongness,’ striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners.” Alain de botton

“Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another,
because love covers a multitude of sins.”
1 Peter 4:8

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Have you made it your partner’s job to save you from your “emptiness and incompleteness”, from your “grief and melancholy?”
  • Do you expect grace from your partner to cover your “multitude of sins?”
  • Can you embrace your union of imperfections as “normal”–even unavoidable?
  • Will you commit yourself to working towards “compatibility” rather than demanding it as a precondition?

Abba, teach me to love.

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Thanks for reading/following my blog. The length of this post is a rare exception. Debotton’s article was just too important to pass over due to my self-imposed rules on length. – Bill

Daily Riches: Don’t Abandon Love (Thomas a Kempis and Larry Crabb)

Posted on by under Being the Beloved, Humility, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well, Marriage, The Love of God

“Love is a mighty power, a great and complete good; Love alone lightens every burden, and makes the rough places smooth. It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders all bitterness sweet and acceptable.  …Love aspires to high things, and is held back by nothing base.  …Love gives all for all, resting in One who is highest above all things, from whom every good flows and proceeds. …Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds. Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil, attempts things beyond its strength; love sees nothing as impossible, for it feels able to achieve all things. Love therefore does great things; it is strange and effective; while he who lacks love faints and fails. Love is watchful, and while resting, never sleeps; weary, it is never exhausted; imprisoned, it is never in bonds; alarmed, it is never afraid; like a living flame and a burning torch, it surges upward and surely surmounts every obstacle.  …when a man is self-seeking he abandons love. Love is watchful, humble, and upright; Love is not fickle and sentimental, nor is it intent on vanities. It is sober, pure, steadfast, quiet, and guarded in all the senses. Love is submissive and obedient to superiors, mean and contemptible in its own sight, devoted and thankful to God, trusting and hoping in Him even when not enjoying His sweetness; for none can live in love without suffering.” Thomas a Kempis

“Something is different about people who love. They convey a presence that goes beyond the words they say, the things they do. We know they are for us. …Because the relationship is never at stake, we sense a freedom to enter fully into the enjoyment of relationship rather than to keep the relationship intact.” Larry Crabb

“Because of the increase of wickedness,
the love of most will grow cold.”
Jesus in Matthew 24:12

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Consider for a moment God’s love for you, which is “held back by nothing” and “surmounts every obstacle.” …that as his child, your relationship with God is “never at stake.”
  • Don’t we usually look to blame others rather than ourselves when our love “grows cold?”
  • Are you able to keep loving God “even when not enjoying his sweetness?”

Abba, love must be learned and learned again and again. Teach me to love.

For More: The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek  God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest! – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

 

Daily Riches: That Holy Place Where God Makes Himself Known (Gary Thomas, Brené Brown)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Ego Issues, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Well, Marriage, The Call to Change

“There’s an old rabbinical story about how the spot was chosen for God’s holy temple. Two brothers worked a common field and a common mill. Each night they divided whatever grain they had produced and each took his portion home. One brother was single and one was married with a large family. The single brother decided that his married brother, with all those kids, certainly needed more grain than he did, so at night he secretly crept over to his brother’s granary and gave him an extra portion. The married brother realized that his single brother didn’t have any children to care for him in his old age. Concerned about his brother’s future, he got up each night and secretly deposited some grain in his single brother’s granary. One night they met halfway between the two granaries, and each brother realized what the other was doing. They embraced, and as the story goes, God witnessed what happened and said, ‘This is a holy place — a place of love — and it is here that my temple shall be built.’ The holy place is that spot where God is made known to his people, ‘the place where human beings discover each other in love.’ Marriage can be that holy place. The site of a relationship that proclaims God’s love to this world… Notice what makes this story so moving, two individuals who had greater empathy for the difficulties the other faced rather than their own. Selfish marriage is the opposite: each partner feels their own pain more intensely and are either unaware or calloused in regards to their spouse’s pain.” Gary Thomas

“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment…. If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” Brené Brown 

“Above all, clothe yourselves with love”
Colossians 3:14

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • If you’re married, do you see your marriage as a “holy place…where God is made known?”
  • If you’re married, you know how decidedly painful this process can be. Are you willing to submit to it?
  • Imagine what your spouse can do for you if you are “seen, heard and valued” – if he or she responds to your vulnerability with “empathy and understanding.” Imagine what you can do for your spouse.

Abba, make yourself known in the dailyness and difficulties of our marriages.

For More: Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. Thanks!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Community, Stability and Spirituality (Joan Chittister)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Community & the Church, Death Daily, Ego Issues, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Learning Your Proper Place, Loving Well, Spiritual Formation, the importance of stability

“Everything in life, contrary to Madison Avenue’s guarantees, can’t be cured or resolved or eliminated. Some things must simply be endured. Some things must simply be borne. Some things must simply be accepted. Community and relationships enable us to do that. …It is in community where we find out who we really are. It is life with another that shows my impatience and life with another that demonstrates my possessiveness and life with another that gives notice to my nagging devotion to the self. Life with someone else, in other words, doesn’t show me nearly as much about his or her shortcomings as it does about my own. In human relationships I learn how to soften my hard spots and how to reconcile and how to care for someone else besides myself. In human relationships I learn that theory is no substitute for love. It is easy to talk about the love of God; it is another things to practice it. That’s how relationships sanctify me. They show me where holiness is for me. That’s how relationships develop me. They how me where growth is for me. If I’m the passive-victim type, then assertiveness may have something to do with coming to wholeness. If I’m the domineering character in every group, then a willingness to listen and to be led may be my call to life. Alone, I am what I am, but in community I have the chance to become everything that I can be. And so, stability bonds me to this group of people and to these relationships so that resting in the security of each other we can afford to stumble and search, knowing that we will be caught if we fall and we will be led where we cannot see by those who have been there before us.” Joan Chittister

“Iron sharpens iron,
So one man sharpens another.”
Proverbs 27:17

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you discovering “who you really are” through your life in community – perhaps as a spouse, sibling, parent, roommate, employee, church member, neighbor? What about you needs to change?
  • Have you discovered in your relationships that some things won’t change and “must simply be endured?” Are you doing that well?
  • Are you engaged in community life so that, you are not only learning about yourself, but changing? Is a probationary approach to relationships hindering your transformation?

Abba, help me to submit to this messy but essential part of spirituality.

For More: Wisdom Distilled From the Daily by Joan Chittister

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog.  I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Start Somewhere (Toby Mac, Katherine Anne Porter and Heidi Baker)

Posted on by under Forgiveness, Loving Well, The Love of God

“Last night, everything was movin’ so fast

I could barely keep track
of my offenses or your defenses.
In hindsight, I woulda, coulda, shoulda not gone there
But left without a word to spare.
Was it your offenses or my defensiveness?

That’s got me thinkin’ that we’re never gonna get it right.
I wanna straighten this before the sun goes down tonight.
If I could only fight the bitterness I feel inside.
This thing is eatin’ me alive.

Well I’m right here
And you’re right there
And God knows we’ve got to start somewhere.
‘Cause I’m messed up
And you’re broken
And those shots we fired are still smokin’.

I’m tossin’ and turnin’ on the things I’d undo.
As I wrestle with the painful truth
my sleep escapes me as guilt berates me.
Exhausted, the memories are drawing so near
I can see it like a world premiere.
When did my objective lose all objectiveness?

I said some things that I regret
And if I could, I’d take ’em back.
If I could turn my words around
You wouldn’t hear a sound.

But here I am, and there you are,
The space between us is not so far.
I’m reaching out my hand in love,
Before the fading sun,
forgive me for what I’ve done.
“Start Somewhere”,  Toby Mac

“Love must be learned and learned again and again.
Hate needs no instruction, but waits only to be provoked.”
Katherine Anne Porter

“Ministry is simply about loving the person in front of you.
It’s about stopping for the one
and being the very fragrance of Jesus to a lost and dying world.”
Heidi Baker

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“… love covers over a multitude of sins.”
1 Peter 4:8

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you find love something that must be “learned and learned again and again” – either in marriage and/or in your relationship with God? If so, why?
  • Do you have a sense of being “messed up and broken?” Of relational regret? Of needing forgiveness?
  • There’s no telling about your spouse, but God is definitely waiting for you to drop your defensiveness, to “start somewhere”, to “reach out your hand in love.” Can you do that now?

Abba, in your love, cover my many sins, and may I be quick to love others in that same way.

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For More: The Necessary Enemy by Katherine Anne Porter

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

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