Why should I get married?

That may seem like a strange question, and perhaps it is, but I'm not the only one asking it. Numerous reports remark upon the trend among young adults toward "delaying" marriage, sometimes indefinitely. Women and men are focusing on their education and establishing their careers before entertaining thoughts of "settling down." For many, including Christians, putting off marriage doesn't feel like a sacrifice since a certain amount of instant gratification comes with their having embraced the false ideal of cohabitation, or worse, the hookup culture. That being said, I realize that as a proponent of marital chastity, the question Why should I get married? is perhaps even stranger.

Here's why I'm asking it. For the last decade or so, we have routinely told one story about marriage: "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another husband and wife sharpen each other."

We have done this for good reasons. We want to be, and indeed we must be, honest about how difficult married life often is. We don't want to set people up for failure. (Though, perhaps somewhat ironically, there are more failed marriages today than ever before. Not that divorce is the only way to fail a marriage.) In fact, it is, I think, partially in reaction to the climbing divorce rate that we have begun to focus on this "sharpening" aspect of marriage.

We do need to tell this part of the story. But we also need to remember that it is only part of the story. We must guard against overcorrecting and being so laser-focused on marriage as purifying fire that we neglect the rest of the story, thereby developing a truncated view of marriage.

We must discipline ourselves to tell whole truths.

Teenagers and 20-30-somethings listen to sermon after sermon, small group after small group, blog post after blog post, dating book after dating book... declare that "marriage is the number one tool (second only to having children) God uses to make us less selfish and more Christ-like"---while simultaneously watching their parents and friends' parents and peers divorce. And then those same sermons, small groups, blog posts and books turn right around to lecture young adults for delaying marriage, calling them lazy and selfish. Are we insane? (Now, there is certainly some truth to the lazy-and-selfish critique; young adults are, after all, human. But again... not the whole story.)

As a single young 30-something myself, every time I hear this refrain about marriage, a not so small part of me thinks, The Lord's got several sharpening instruments at work in my life, and if that's the main thing marriage does... Why should I get married?* Fortunately there's a part of me that knows better; there's a part of me that reminds the rest of me of the blessings of, for example, companionship. But the world we live in is fast-paced, fragmented, and isolating (and propagates its own narratives about marriage). I need reinforcement! I need whole narratives and complete pictures. Or at least not tragically truncated ones.

As good as it is to communicate the character-building hardships of married life, when we allow this single narrative to dominate our definitions of marriage, we shouldn't be surprised that young adults grow more and more wary of it.

While we should want to be sharpened and disciplined, seldom do we deliberately put ourselves into difficult situations solely so that we can build character. And, in the case of marriage, I'm not sure that's actually good motivation---Darling, will you marry me so that God can use you to make me more spiritual? Lamesauce. Plus, kinda selfish, no?

No. We put painstaking practice into our work and craft because we love. Skateboarding, painting, accounting, teaching, guitar. It's that I-feel-God's-pleasure-when-I-run kind of love. Because we are created to enjoy the triune God and the fullness of life he supplies.

Question: In addition to being a sacrament,** what is marriage? How can we paint a more complete picture?



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*Yeah, but I'm sure that nothing in your life is as sanctifying as marriage. It's in the Bible... somewhere. So you really need to stop being a self-centered slacker and get married (and have children!) already. In the meantime don't forget that before you do get married, singles have more time and energy on their hands to devote to the Church, not having any sanctifying relationships like a spouse and kids, so you really ought to spend all of your free time here. Don't worry; if you're doing it right, God will bring someone to you.

** I know we Protestants tend to have a visceral reaction to the word sacrament, but as sanctification is a divine grace, and married life is often a channel of that divine grace...

Breaking from old perceptions

I was fascinated when I saw this headline on npr.org:  'We Hurt A Lot Of People,' Westboro Pastor's Granddaughter Says.

Two people bravely leave a hateful, oppressive, allegedly Christian group, trying to right the wrongs of their past.  This made me think about how I have changed my mind, in a Christian context, regarding attitudes I've harbored in the past towards groups and lifestyles.  While I would not say that the culture of my upbringing even touches that of the Westboro Baptist Church, some sentiments I had in my younger years were distantly related.

Sometimes I wonder if I those attitudes were solely products of my environment and conservative suburban 80's era childhood, and now my new environment has allowed me to overcome those notions.  Perhaps a sillier thought I have is wondering if I am a better or worse Christian for seeing certain "moralities" through a justice-over-written-rule Kohlberg's Sixth Stage lens. 

Given the countless sects and denominations among Christians, and the varying individuals who populate those groups, this negates having only cookie cutter answers or one rigid archetype.  I am just grateful to serve a loving, all-forgiving, all-inclusive God.  

Tell Me a Story

I've been teaching one of my classes this semester about the power of stories in human life. We are reading a collection of short stories and analyzing them to figure out what makes a good story, what makes a story "work," and just what it is that compels humans to tell stories. In my research for the class, I've found some interesting things about the effect of stories on our brains. For example, studies have shown that when we read language that appeals to our senses, it's not just the part of our brain that processes language that responds, but also the parts of our brain that process the various physical elements in the description. In other words, to read is, in a sense, to experience, at least as far as our brains are concerned. In a well-known study by Michael Gazzaniga, who pioneered studies on the split brain, Gazzaniga found that the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for interpreting information and making it fit into a narrative even where no narrative exists:

In one of Gazzaniga's favourite examples, he flashed the word 'smile' to a patient's right hemisphere and the word 'face' to the left hemisphere, and asked the patient to draw what he'd seen. “His right hand drew a smiling face,” Gazzaniga recalled. “'Why did you do that?' I asked. He said, 'What do you want, a sad face? Who wants a sad face around?'.” The left-brain interpreter, Gazzaniga says, is what everyone uses to seek explanations for events, triage the barrage of incoming information and construct narratives that help to make sense of the world. (http://www.nature.com/news/the-split-brain-a-tale-of-two-halves-1.10213)

The big question, of course, is still why the human brain gets so much stimulus from stories and is, itself, such a story-telling machine. One theory is that story-telling is evolutionarily helpful; by allowing the brain to "experience" a difficult situation without actually having to encounter physical harm, stories help humans to avoid harmful experiences and survive. This explanation makes sense.

As a Christian, the story that filters my view of this phenomenon is, of course, the Christian story -- specifically that the God who chose to become human (The Word made flesh) also chose to speak to his people through stories. Jesus spoke in parables and figures of speech, and God made man in His image as a storyteller. We are designed for stories, and we live in them and through them, as we make decisions based on the stories that shape our lives.

Now we can view these stories as mere neurological and social constructs (see this previous TTC entry for more info. on what a "social construct" is) that enable physical and cultural survival without any link to Truth or Reality.

Or

We can view our brain's propensity for story-telling as a sign that The Story -- the big one -- about a glorious creation, a horrifying fall, a bloody redemption, and a triumphant restoration -- is True. Maybe God made us for story so that we could see the big Story that is playing out all around as, through Christ, all that is broken is made new. Maybe everything is always-already story not because truth is unknowable, but because The Truth is in the story.

Are You a Jerk? Answer These Questions and Find Out.

I've noticed that the people who say they don't like bullies and other rude people are usually guilty of doing mean things, themselves, and not knowing it. Are you such a person? You wouldn't know, obviously, so take our test and get in touch with your real self:

• Do you look down on people because they use Apple products? Or because they don't use Apple products?
• Are you unlikely to give someone a chance if they seem un-American or un-traditional in some way? Or maybe it's when they're just too American for your cultured sensibilities.
• Do you scoff when someone tells you their problems, even though they don't have kids and don't know what a real problem is? Or maybe they only have one child and really shouldn't consider themselves parents, just yet.
• Would you rather not talk to someone if they're wearing designer clothes instead than P.F. Flyers? (Or is it the other way around?)
• Do you think you're better than people who listen to pop music because you've heard of Béla FLeck and they haven't? (Confession: I'm guilty of this one.)

What? You never listened to the 'We the Vehicles' album by Maritime? Why are we even friends?

• Do you take pride in proving people wrong? Would you rather win an argument that hold an enlightening conversation?
• When someone tells you that they enjoy reading Twilight books, would you rather make fun of them than offer your friendship? What if their favorite movie is Battleship?
• Do you assume that rich people from the nice, big houses are less deserving of your sympathy when they are having a bad day?
• Are you pretty sure that every [Republican/Democrat] is just plain stupid and that it's OK to look down on them?
• Do you look the other way when people make racist jabs about president Obama, even though you normally don't stand for that sort of thing? Did you laugh when David Letterman joked about someone raping Sarah Palin's daughter, even if you usually don't tolerate that humor?

Are you guilty of any of these things? If so, what are you prepared to do about it? 

These attitudes are not harmless. When you decide to look down on people for these reasons they will surely notice - no matter how subtle you think you are. Other people can tell when you're giving them a cold shoulder, or ignoring them, and it makes them feel unwanted. Don't contribute to the isolation people feel in our society of hatred. Be the solution.