A Brief Thought on Longevity

As yesterday's post indicated, my wife and I have been married 44 years. Quite an accomplishment, although there are many who manage that.

In any case, we were sitting reminiscing yesterday. We started with the normal stuff like Richard Nixon was President and Roberta Flack's single, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," was number 1 on the Billboard charts. We then talked about the fact that for many years we actually worked together at the same job. We were co-pastors from 1989 - 2003. Before that she was involved in the church life as a pastor's wife- and then for most of the time from 2005-2012 with me as the pastor's husband.

We spent a lot of time together. At work, at play, at rest.

Over the years many friends have commented that they could not have done that with their spouse. Working together like that would have driven them crazy.

My response is a deep gratitude that for all these years I have been able to work, day-in and day-out with my best friend. We like being together.

For us, at least, that is one of the secrets of 44 years.

No Words Needed Today

The Tipping Point

It would appear that yesterday's non-decision by the US Supreme Court may be the tipping point on same-gender marriage in the United States. Talk about a quick turn-around over a very short period of time! One activist commented on the news last evening that it is almost like whiplash!

Even four or five years ago, it would have been impossible to believe that such a sea-change would occur within such a time frame. yet it has. There was of course, the obvious cause of the Supreme Court finding that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. That opened the door. But still- this fast?

I think the reasons have just as much to do with two things.

First, the speed at which information changes and doubles is amazing. More people are more aware more quickly than at any time in history. The 24/7 news cycle helps, but it is just as much the very existence of so much raw data available to more people. Over the past few years more people have become more aware of the arguments for- and against- the right to get married. The information showed that more people than had been thought to approve, did approve. More people learned that the discussion was no longer in the closets of America- it was on the Main Streets and offices and factories and in our church pews.

Which leads to the second thing that I think has happened. More people have come out of the closet and more people know more people who are openly gay. Guess what? They are neighbors, friends, co-workers and children. I may have told this story before, but it is worth repeating if I did. Sometime about 25 years ago I was at a church camp where we raised the issue of acceptance of gay young people. Those who opposed what some of us were saying would get angry at us when we raised stories of real people being hurt and pushed aside simply because they were gay. We were challenged not to make it a personal issue. We were talking about sin. Don't confuse the issue with real life people.

In these last 25 years more people are willing to see the gay people in their midst and discover that they are just like anybody else. What they want is the equality of marriage and to have their love recognized by the powers that be and the world in general.

Today there are now 30 states where same-gender marriage is legal. For today the argument is moot.

At last!

Here's What's Wrong With This Thinking

I heard this rationalization again today from the conservative element in Wisconsin following yesterday's overturning of that state's ban on same-sex marriage. Basically it said that the courts should not overturn a constitutional amendment because, are you ready-

It was legally voted into law by a majority of the people of that state.

On the very superficial surface (yes, that is redundant!) it kind of maybe makes sense. We are a democracy. There is majority rule. The one with the most votes wins. So who is this judge to make her own law.

Thank goodness that argument didn't win in the 1860s when THE SAME argument could have been used to deny slaves their freedom. After all, those states legally allowed slavery. Those states should have been allowed to keep their slaves. That's the old "states' rights" argument. So today the states that want to ban same-sex marriage should be allowed to maintain their prejudicial opinion, regardless of what may be a more informed and open decision.

Sorry Wisconsin (and other states') conservatives. That doesn't hold water. Once the Defense of Marriage Act was nullified, there is no legal reason to deny equal rights and privilege. My guess is that the side with the most money was actually the winner in the earlier debates over same-sex marriage ban. Now it is reason, common sense, and an acceptance of people who may have a different way of seeing the world.

Which brings me to another quick note:
Since when does the party with the most money get special privilege?

But that's for another time. For today,

On Wisconsin!

Change Continues

Yesterday came the latest headline out of New Jersey.

Christie Withdraws Appeal of Same-Sex Marriage Ruling in New Jersey - NYTimes.com

At the end of last week the New Jersey Supreme Court did not stay the right of same-sex couples to get married starting yesterday in New Jersey. Gov. Chris Christie, who has spoken against the ruling decided that the time had come to stop fighting on this one.

No appeal.

No taking the ruling on to a higher court.

So yesterday New Jersey allowed same-sex marriage!

I have never NOT had a cynical side to me political insights or thoughts. This one sent me wondering, though, down the 2016 presidential campaign trail. That being a road that Gov. Christie has already bought the maps for.

He can read the writing on the wall with this issue. It has gone to new areas unheard of only a few years ago. Fourteen states now allow it. In spite of the Tea Party and evangelical Christians, the opinions only get stronger and more supportive. As more people realize they know gay couples, this will just enhance the opinions.

Christie is no dummy. He knows he better test the winds of change on this one. Yes, he knows he will be against Tea Party-supported candidates. Which is why he is taking a different road. He is making it clear in his own way to the great middle-of-the-road voting bloc, as well as the younger voters, that he has a broader view- a greater openness. If he wants to win, that's his hope.

With all the shenanigans in Washington where GOP leaders are terrified of the Tea Party, it is refreshing to see someone who reads the polls and begins to understand that the world is not only changing, it's changing faster than any of us ever thought possible.

In the end my first cynical comment: I guess Gov. Christie reads the polls, turned into gratitude that someone is willing to go out on a limb.

Would I Have Had the Courage?

Earlier this week the Minnesota House passed the bill legalizing marriage equality. Probably within a few days the Minnesota Senate will do the same making Minnesota the 12th state to do so. I have been clear of my agreement of the bill and its ideas.

But I wonder if I would have been willing to do that if I were still in the active ministry?

What brough that to mind was that my current pastor at the Episcopal Church where we are now members, was on TV (as he has been before) expressing the acceptance of the bill and advicating marriage equality. He has been clear where he stands from the start last year when Minnesota defeated the anti-equality bill . There he was on TV on Thursday, in public, giving his opinion.

I am sure that I would not have been doing so. I am sure that I would have wanted to talk about it only with people who know my opinion already. I am sure that if someone in my church would have asked me where I stood I would have said my opinion but then hemmed and hawed with some statement about accepting, etc.

Of course, I haven't been in the church in almost 10 years now. Times, on this issue, have changed in our culture. But I was aware of how few pastors might have been making public statements on the issue. You know, we have to be able to minister to everyone and not offend anyone. Even if we believe they are wrong(?) But I am sure that in my desire to be liked and to be able to minister to everyone in my church, I would very likely have been less open than some.

On the same newscast was a pastor from a more conservative church who made it clear that their church was not going to go along with this cultural shift. Since the beginning of their church, he said, they have stuck with the Bible and scriptural values. He was not afraid of his views. He was certain of them and didn't care if people disagreed. He doesn't have the desire to minister to people who disagree with him unless they are willing to be open to changing their opinion. (My interpretation.)

Why is it that when we find that we disagree with what has been a more traditional opinion of theology and scripture that we hem and haw? We bow, if ever so slightly, to the tradition and lose sight of the fact that in many instances, (most instances, perhaps) those long-held interpretations are as culturally-based as the contemporary ones.

I have a sense that what we might be witnessing is similar to what was happening in American theology in the mid-1800s and again in the mid-1900s over issues of race. We missed the fact then that the Hebrew Bible (and therefore the under-pinnings of the Christian Scriptures) are tribal, a variation of the racial arguments. We may have difficulty today seeing how in any way you can justify human slavery and the de-humanizing of whole sections of the world population can be God's will.

I pray that the move we have been seeing in the past several years will prove to be as antiquated and irrational in 50 or 100 years. I pray that these steps can lead us to a deeper and more inclusive vision of who we are as human brothers and sisters. I pray, finally, that God's love can be seen and experienced as grace instead of law.

What a Strange Concept!

The ongoing debate over gay marriage has certainly hit a new level of discussion. I was listening to the public radio program On Being last evening and caught part of the discussion on the issue. Two things hit me.

First, in the discussion by a person formerly opposed to gay marriage, he made the point that here are these individuals who want IN to an institution that many mainstream Americans seem to want OUT of. And it is the institution that the anti-gay marriage people are trying to protect. What this amounts to, I realized as he talked, is a major cognitive dissonance when what we see and say and believe and want all come into some form of disagreement.

In essence he said that he realized that all the anti-gay marriage talk hadn't done anything to strengthen the institution. Marriage is in trouble, he implied, in spite of all the support it is supposedly getting. Why then are people trying to prevent those who WANT to get married from getting married?

Sidenote: I have been hearing how marriage is in such trouble for as long as I've been married (41 years). Maybe we are just better informed about it. Maybe more people feel free to leave truly bad marriages. Maybe we just are more willing to look around and see that the old institution of marriage was broken and we are in a time of moving it into a new way. I don't know, but it is not a new problem in 2013.

In that may well be the seeds of the change that has been occurring over the last few years. It is a massive change which, as the pundits have been telling us, is an almost unprecedented change in a short time. How does not allowing someone to get married keep marriage safe? So goes strange concept #1.

Second was the idea that most of the time when we are discussing this issue, we are leaving out one small factor. What is at the heart of marriage? What is it all about? Children? Commitment? Societal institutions under fire? Religion?

Nope.

In the end it is about love.

Whatever that means for the individuals, love is the underpinning of marriage. It is the force that brings two people together. And as it grows, it is the glue that surrounds the couple and keeps them going when the original love (or infatuation) begins to wear off. Love goes deeper and forms newer bonds within the relationship.

Love.

What another strange concept. The more we argue about the rights and wrongs of marriage (gay or straight) the more we lose sight of love. And the more we need to be reminded of it and how, in our current situation the government denies the right of love to be officially recognized in a rite of love.

May this strange concept of love not be denied. May it be allowed to blossom and bloom.

Historic- or Not (2)

Yesterday I commented here that I was afraid that the Supreme Court will do its s - l - o - w turtle dance around any major change that would make a difference. Today's discussion and questions seem to indicate that I may have been on the right track. Court watchers heard what sounded like good arguments that DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) will probably be shot down. That is not bad. That is good. For those who live in states where gay marriage is legal, it means the Federal benefits ban would be lifted.

Looking back on yesterday it seems likely that they will decide that case on Proposition 8's constitutionality along  narrow legal grounds. That's okay- if you live in California. But it sets no precedent for anywhere else.

Obviously the hope would be that this would be the impetus for changes to be encouraged elsewhere, especially in states that do not now have bans on gay marriage.It may also spur some movement to reverse those states that ban it. So some movement may be possible.

But those of us who hoped for a Brown v. Board of Education or Rove v. Wade type decision will probably be disappointed. Chief Justice Roberts will most likely be the most significant influence in the whole process, working between the sides to get a workable compromise. But in the slow movement of a court that almost by working definition lags behind change, that will mean only a small step forward.

Probably better than none.

By the way, I guess that symbol up there in the right corner of the post was a social media sensation yesterday. A good sign of the change that is still taking place.

Historic - or Not?

I have a fear that all the hoopla over the Supreme Court's potential decision may come to naught. This heavily divided court will remain heavily divided and do what they have done before- split the difference- and get everybody angry. What I fear will happen is they will find that:

• the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional and
• Proposition 8 IS constitutional

which will leave us absolutely nowhere!

The states that allow same-sex marriage will be left out in the cold and give the anti-same-sex marriage groups impetus to try to overturn that in those states. The ones that have "bans" on same-sex marriage will be allowed to continue their denial of rights.

One thing out of today's presentation that was good... when Justice Sonia Sotomayor commented that if marriage is all about procreation, then no marriage licenses should be issued for people over 50. It is those kinds of arguments and important counter-arguments that may, in the end, win the day.

I Am Voting "No!"

NOTE: The ads on the right sidebar are automatically generated by AdSense.
If they support either of these amendments, they do not reflect my opinions.

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Here in Minnesota we have two ballot referenda for constitutional amendments. I am voting No! on both.

First is the marriage amendment to change the Minnesota constitution to limit the idea of "marriage" as between one man and one woman. It's main purpose is to keep gay marriage from becoming a reality. All the traditional reasons for the amendment have been passed around. Marriage is under attack, they say, and this is the way to protect it.  Don't ask me how that will happen. I have no idea. This will not stop domestic violence, probably the greatest threat to healthy marriages. It will not do anything but allow people to get married. How that harms marriage is beyond me. Don't get me started on the "Biblical" definitions of marriage- they didn't exist in any way, shape, or form as we understand the idea of marriage today. The legal and social problems faced by a gay couple are daunting. This will only make it worse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The second referendum is to make government-issued photo IDs required for voting. It is very simple in my mind. In 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed (and renewed in 2006 for 25 years.) At the time, President Johnson said:

This law covers many pages, but the heart of the act is plain. Wherever, by clear and objective standards, States and counties are using regulations, or laws, or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down.

Voting is a right, not a privilege. We have come a long way since the colonial era when only white, property-owning men could vote. Thank God for that. Let's not step back almost 50 years to find some new-fangled, higher-tech way of denying people the right to vote. Voter fraud is so rare it would probably do as much good to pass a law against extra-terrestrials voting.

I feel very strongly about the freedoms we have. Any time we begin to find ways to restrict them, we are hurting ourselves and our future. I hope my fellow voters of Minnesota can see into the heart of these two issues and step away from the exclusionary attitude.

Why Don't I Like The Phrase?

Man Cave:

is a male sanctuary, such as a specially equipped garage, spare bedroom, media room, den, or basement. It is not a cave but rather a metaphor describing a room inside the house, such as the basement or garage or attic or office, or outside the house such as a wood shed or tool room, where "guys can do as they please" without fear of upsetting any female sensibility about house decor or design. Paula Aymer of Tufts University calls it the "last bastion of masculinity".

I have not like the phrase "Man Cave" since the first time I heard it. I still don't. Maybe even more so after reading that description from Wikipedia. It kind of makes me think that it is a place for some unsocialized heathen of some type. It almost smacks to me of stereotyping, which I don't like to have happen to me,

While a wife may have substantial authority over a whole house in terms of design and decoration, she generally has no say about what gets "mounted on the walls" of a man's personal space. Since it may be accepted that a woman has input on the decoration of the rest of the house, a man cave or man space is in some sense a reaction to feminine domestic power.

Feminine domestic power?

It gets worse, doesn't it. Now we are back in the hunter-gatherer world. Me, Tarzan. You, Jane. I am not some throw-back cave man. My wife is not some over-bearing domestic dictator. What are we trying to escape from? Our spouses?

[Man caves are] a place to be alone, to be away from women and from female sensibilities, to indulge in hobbies, and to hang out with male friends. It is, loosely, a male-only space to retreat to. ... Some psychologists claim that a man cave can provide refuge from stressful surroundings and be beneficial to marriage.

But why call them a cave?

In a sense, for married men, it is a way to recreate some of the space and freedom of their bachelor days since it was like a "pad" similar in feeling to a frat house game room or a college dorm room where people could come and go "as if they owned the place."

This really goes downhill fast, in my humble opinion. A frat house or dorm room? THOSE are the best years of our lives? You've got to be kidding me. You couldn't get me back there for all the tea in China. Freedom? Sure, if a small, smelly, cramped room is your idea of freedom. Fun? Not on your life.

Ah, but here's the line I love:

Martin thinks that any space in the house will do, even a lounge chair and a set of headphones, provided there's an agreement with one's wife or girlfriend that the space is under the control of the man.

I am the boss--
and I have my wife's permission to say so.

I agree that the husband - as much as the wife - needs to have those places where they can express their hobbies and interests. I know that I have taken up too much space with my stuff in our houses and apartments, but my wife has had her space free (mostly) from my interference. I have a computer room, she has a sewing room. But I feel demeaned and minimized by the term "Man Cave". I expect is is the same as a woman would feel by being called "The Little Woman." (Yuck!)

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go put on my headphones, listen to music, and read. Somewhere. In the apartment. Just don't call it a cave.

Thirty-eight Already- Intertwining and Binding

--Jonah Lehrer on his blog The Frontal Cortex posted a reflection on some reading he was doing on close, interpersonal relationships(much of it, he says based on research by Ellen Berscheid, at the University of Minnesota.) He says that he is mostly convinced

that there's a fundamental mismatch between the emotional state we expect to feel for a potential spouse - we want to "fall wildly in love," experiencing that ecstatic stew of passion, desire, altruism, jealousy, etc - and the emotional state that actually determines a successful marriage over time. Berscheid defines this more important emotion as "companionate love" or "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined."

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, compares this steady emotion which grows over time to its unsteady (but sexier and more cinematic) precursor: "If the metaphor for passionate love is fire, the metaphor for companionate love is vines growing, intertwining, and gradually binding two people together." ...

The point is not that passionate love isn't an important signal. It surely is - that rush of dopamine is trying to tell us something. But a successful marriage has to endure long past the peak of passion.
--Jonah Lehrer

Well, today marks 38 years of that kind of thing happening between my wife and myself. To have that many years has to take more than just being over 50. It has to have that intertwining and binding talked about above. Affectionate love or deep compassion (as opposed to just erotic passion) is an amazing thing. At times you don't even know it's there. Then you stop and think about it and you are overwhelmed. You pay attention to what you are feeling and you go "Whoa!" or "Wow!"

To live into the love that endures beyond passion takes time and energy and probably the best partner the world's ever seen.

Even - and probably especially - after 38 years.

(for Val)

Since It's Been a While

Time for some quotes that have struck my fancy. Since, as noted below, this is my 37th wedding anniversary I thought I would post a few that I think are applicable to such a special day....

First, from a true genius, Albert Einstein who wasn't talking about marriage, but I think he hits the mystery of marriage on the head:

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."

Next, also in a not-directly-about-marriage quote from philosopher and author Aldous Huxley:

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities."

English writer Dorothy Nevill could have substituted "marriage" for the word conversation in the next quote:

"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

Two quotes that get to the nitty-gritty of making a marriage successful. First from Dr. Joyce Brothers:

"Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash."

Second from comedian Rita Rudner in a quote that surely is more postModern than before:

"I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry."

Finally from church official, psychologist and counselor Robert C. Dodds one of those obvious but hard to do ideas:

The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.

A 36-Year Memory - And Still New

I came across the following in an article in the New York Times back in February. It struck me as so true and important that I saved it for today.

Rather than visiting the same familiar haunts and dining with the same old friends, couples need to tailor their date nights around new and different activities that they both enjoy, says Arthur Aron, a professor of social psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The goal is to find ways to keep injecting novelty into the relationship. The activity can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or something a little more unusual or thrilling — like taking an art class or going to an amusement park.

The theory is based on brain science. New experiences activate the brain’s reward system, flooding it with dopamine and norepinephrine. These are the same brain circuits that are ignited in early romantic love, a time of exhilaration and obsessive thoughts about a new partner. (They are also the brain chemicals involved in drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder.)

Most studies of love and marriage show that the decline of romantic love over time is inevitable. The butterflies of early romance quickly flutter away and are replaced by familiar, predictable feelings of long-term attachment.

But several experiments show that novelty — simply doing new things together as a couple — may help bring the butterflies back, recreating the chemical surges of early courtship.
--NYT

Today is my wife's and my 36th wedding anniversary. The absolute only way from our standpoint that we could ever have made it is the truth in the above mentioned article. Talk about amazing, purely amazing. Or- maybe even more....

More....

...from Wendell Berry:

The miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine - which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.

Or how two people can meet and form a bond that is stronger even 36 years later. That is the part that is beyond us- the holy, the spiritual, the life shared.

Even more amazing each day.

But that quote also reminds me that today is Earth Day. Earth Day is, of course, two years older than our marriage although for a while it wasn't really being celebrated. I have a hunch that the miracle Berry talked about- as well as the miracle of any ongoing, long-standing relationship is renewal. The cycle of life is one of change. The world around us is constantly changing, renewing, regrowing. We are watching that happen now as the drab browns and grays of winter in Minnesota, n longer covered by the snow, are beginning to turn green and many other colors as the first spring flowers join the tree buds.

But when life, earth, relationships are battered by misuse, neglect, or outright abuse, they do not do as well. We need to go back and work at repair. Some think it is too late to repair what we have done to the environment. I don't think that's necessarily so. Life is amazingly resilient. Life survives, although not always in the ways we think it should. It is not too late. But it does take work. Hard work and a commitment to improvement and change.

Kind of like marriages, committed relationships, strong friendships. Come to think of it, maybe that is another way to describe our relationship with the world around us. Committed, partnered relationship. It would be a lot better than being its abuser.