Dancing In The Minefields: The Married Lifestyle

This monogamy business, it's hard work.  "I do are the two most famous last words.  The beginning of the end."

The happiest couple 07-15-1978

They're Dropping Like Flies
I reconnected with a dear old friend on Face Book recently.  I've known him and his family for 18 years; his wife was pregnant with their first child when we met.  They are no longer together, separated in 2008, divorced in 2009.  Financial difficulties played a role but that wasn't the sole reason.  Good Christian people, both of them.  That didn't seem to matter. 

Through Face Book I've found quite a few long lost friends.  A good many of them have thrown in the towel on marriage.  Face Book itself played at least a contributing role in one of the break ups, maybe more.

Love, it would seem, is not all you need.  At least not that romantic butterflies-in-the-stomach, light-headed, sweat-on-the-brow, ringing-in-the-ears kind of love.  That kind of love is fine for what it is.  And it's that in-love sensation that leads many couples to the altar.  But like the flu, whose symptoms it shares, that kind of love will pass.  Oh, it can come back, but it's elusive, and you have to work for it.  For too many, once that initial wave is over, so is the marriage.

A Little Marital Advice
Teri and I met in September 1977.  We were married in July 1978.  I know that love-at-first-sight phenomenon.  And I know it can happen, to the same couple, more than once. But going into it no one dreams it's going to be as hard as it turns out to be.

Many people have given us advice over the years.  The two that I remember the most came from grandfathers.  The day before our wedding my Grandpa Stirmel told me, "Lots of people will tell you that marriage is a 50-50 proposition.  It's not.  It's 100-100."

On the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary, Teri's Grandpa Forester told me, "That's a long time to spend with one woman."

The kind of love that is required to sustain a marriage is an act of the will.  It's hard work and resolve.  To more fully grasp what is necessary to make a marriage work it helps to understand where marriage came from and what it represents.  God cooked the whole thing up.  Some would say He ordained it.  And while there are very real here and now, on this world, in this life reasons for it, ultimately marriage is a metaphor for God's love for us in Jesus. 

Without getting into a theological discussion, allow me to make one more point on this particular part of the topic.  On the night before He went to the cross (which was necessary to make the relationship with us possible in the first place) Jesus sweated blood in anticipation of what He was about to do.  That should give us a hint as to the level of consideration marriage deserves before it is entered in to.

Worth The Price
In the end, it's worth it all.  Of course I say that without having reached the end.  So let me rephrase.  After 32 years, it's been worth it all.  It has, at times, been easy.  But not often and never for very long.  I'm not sure if I qualify as an expert on the subject, but I have managed to stay married to the same woman for more than three decades.  I've been married for most of my life, so I think I know a thing or two about it.  So here's my two cents for those considering marriage or who are married and may be having a rough go of it:  Remember who you are, and hang on.  And in the face of all the chaos remember to dance.

The love of my life

Minefields And Storms
Singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson has likened marriage to dancing in a minefield.  His song, Dancing In The Minefields says it better in three and a half minutes and 319 words than I could in 2500 words.  Thanks Andrew, for reawakening the romantic in so many of us.  Andrew's been married for 15 years, so he still has quite a few landmines to two-step around.  Those first 50 years are the toughest.  I'm just sayin'.

Dancing In The Minefields
Andrew Peterson

Well I was 19 you were 21
The year we got engaged
Everyone said we were much to young
But we did it anyway
We got the rings for 40 each from a pawnshop down the road
We said our vows and took the leap now 15 years ago

We went dancing in the minefields
We went sailing in the storm
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for

Well "I do" are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end
But to lose your life for another I've heard is a good place to begin
Cause the only way to find your life is to lay your own life down
And I believe it's an easy price for the life that we have found


And we're dancing in the minefields
We're sailing in the storm
This is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for
That's what the promise is for

 So when I lose my way, find me
When I loose love's chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith
to the end of all my days
when I forget my name, remind me

Cause we bear the light of the son of man
So there's nothing left to fear
So I'll walk with you in the shadow lands
Till the shadows disappear
Cause he promised not to leave us
And his promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos baby
I can dance with you

So lets go dancing in the minefields
Lets go sailing in the storms
Oh lets go dancing in the minefields
And kicking down the doors
Oh lets go dancing in the minefields
And sailing in the storms
Oh this is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for
That's what the promise is for

Hopeless Change

The toughest decision on this post was how to title it.  Do I go straight SEO (search engine optimization) and somehow incorporate "Tea Party", "Republican" or "Nancy Pelosi"?  Should I fall for the veiled reference to the fallout of the Republican's new majority in the House of Representatives with something like "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead"?  I considered "The More Things Change..." and "Too Little Too Late".

Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead

But I like "Hopeless Change".  It has the same number of syllables as Obama's 2008 campaign slogan of "Hope and Change" while reflecting what yesterday's (Tuesday November 2, 2010) election has accomplished, at least as it applies to the overwhelming majority the Democrats had held in both houses of Congress.  And it pretty much sums up what that change will ultimately mean to this nation.

The Republicans and the Tea Party and Restore the Constitution folks will be celebrating, believing they've sent a message to Washington.  And they have.  Americans are tired of the way things in Washington work.  In the words of newly elected Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, "We've come to take our government back."  Problem is, the people who are expected to deliver the message are the very people we need to take the government back from.

Don't Expect Real Change From The Feds
The kind of change we need at the federal level is not going to be accomplished by the federal government.  No matter how many of the newly elected Congressmen campaigned on how bad Obamacare is (and it's worse than most people fully appreciate) it isn't going to be repealed.  Oh sure, the Republicans may manage to pare it back a little, but it's still going to wind up costing me and you way more money than we're paying for health care now.  It'll cost us directly in higher premiums for individuals and small businesses.  It'll cost us indirectly as those higher premiums are passed on to us as consumers in higher prices and in taxes to pay for it.

And Obamacare is only the tip of the iceberg.  Not only has government gotten too big, it's gotten too arrogant.  And by that I mean the people we have elected.  They have forgotten their place.  They tend to think of themselves, at worst, as rulers, and at best as leaders.  They have forgotten that they are, to put it in Biblical terms, stewards.  And we have allowed them to forget as we have forgotten that it is we, the people, who in this nation are sovereign.  Los Angeles Guns Rights Examiner John Longenecker has written extensively on this concept of sovereignty in the U.S.

A Long Line Of Sidestepping The Constitution
To be fair, Barrack Obama is not the first of our national stewards to overstep his authority, though he has been the most blatant.  This transfer of power from the people to the government, our relinquishing power unconsciously as our elected managers eagerly usurped it, has happened like a frog in a kettle.  You know the analogy, throw a frog into a kettle of boiling water and it will jump out, but put a frog in a kettle of cool water and then turn up the heat under it and the frog will boil to death.  In this instance we are the frog and the federal government has been turning up the heat for a century and a half or more.

It goes back even to good old honest Abe Lincoln when he suspended habeas corpus.  Then Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney defied that suspension and ordered a writ of habeas corpus.  Lincoln and the military didn't honor the Justice's writ.  Taney then ruled Lincoln's suspension unconstitutional and Lincoln ignored that ruling.  Franklin Roosevelt was a mastermind of sidestepping the Constitution to fatten big government with his New Deal alphabet agencies.  And of course under George W. Bush the Patriot Act was an egregious violation of Constitutional rights.  All of which, at least tacitly, paved the way for Obama's nationalization of GM and Chrysler, bailouts and Obamacare and the march down the road to America becoming a socialist state.

The Patch Over Of The Tea Party
Now the Republicans have taken control of the House and made major gains in the Senate.  As of noon today (Wednesday November 3, 2010, the day after the election) there were three Senate races that still had not been decided, Alaska, Colorado and Washington.  Without those seats the Senate stands at 49 Democrats, 46 Republicans and two independents, who both caucus with the Democrats.

John Boehner, Republican House Minority Leader from Ohio, who is expected to become the next Speaker of the House, calls the Republican showing a "mandate for Washington to reduce the size of government."  But, again, that's not going to be an easy mandate to realize by those at the federal level.  Not because there's anything stopping them from doing so, save their own self interest.

It started before all of the ballots had been counted last night.  Republicans are trying to annex the Tea Party.  If this was an episode of Sons of Anarchy it would be called a "patch over", where one MC (motorcycle club) influences a chapter of another, usually allied but weaker club to become a chapter of the stronger club so the stronger club can consolidate its power in a certain area.  The weaker club then has to wear the patch of the stronger club.

Republicans last night were talking about the need for party unity and strongly encouraging the so-called Tea Party candidates to moderate their stance in favor of said unity.  The TV network talking  heads repeatedly referred to the "Tea Party Republicans" as if the Tea Party was an official subgroup of the GOP.  The Tea Party can not allow that to happen, but that's a topic I'll discuss in the coming days.

Our Hope Is With The States
The real good news in the results from yesterday's elections is what happened at the state level.  Republicans have gained a majority of state governorships.  That's good news because if any real change is going to be realized at the federal level it's going to have to be initiated by the states.  After all, the federal government was created by and gets its authority from the states.  The bad news is that the states, like we individual citizens, the people, have largely forgotten that.

There has been some rumbling in the past year or so at the state level.  Several states have passed state sovereignty firearm legislation aimed at exempting firearms, ammunition and accessories manufactured, sold and kept in state from federal firearm regulation.  New Hampshire went so far as to add a clause making it a felony for a federal agent to enforce federal firearms regulations on firearms manufactured and kept in New Hampshire.  And a handful of states have passed or are considering legislation aimed at exempting their citizens from participating in any federally mandated health care scheme.

The states defend this type of legislation based on the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  That's the part of the Constitution most often ignored by those in federal government.  And it may be our best hope to affect real change.  There are those two words again, "hope" and "change".  I guess Obama got at least one thing right.

I'm just sayin'.