Thursday, August 30, 2007

Families

I've been thinking a bit this week about marriage, divorce and family break-ups. It's not a very delightful topic, and it wasn't by choice that my mind has gone here. On Sunday I was told of a young couple with three kids who have recently separated. On Tuesday I had a chat with a guy who finalized his divorce last month. It's been on my mind. It's an unfortunate reality in our society. Each instance is different, and I'm in no place to judge, having never been married. Still, I'd like to think I have some understanding of commitment, sacrifice, compromise, giving, receiving... And it saddens me to see families break up, with kids getting caught in the middle, because of one persons selfishness, or another persons failure to honor a commitment, or ....

One of the things that it has cause me to think about is my own experience. I've never been married, but my parents have. Only once though, to each other. There are 11 marriages represented by my parents and their siblings (my dad has 6 sisters, my mom 1 sister and 3 brothers). All of them honored the commitments they made to each other, and before God. My family is a statistical anomaly in a society where nearly half of marriages end in divorce.

In my grandfather's memoirs, he says this about my dad, his son-in-law:
After I learned to know John, I had to admit though, that there are few men who would spend so much of their leisure time with their wife and children as John did.”
What a compliment! I wonder if this has something to do with a successful marriage?

I've been incredibly blessed to have parents like this, specifically a dad like mine.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Jon Stewart - America to the Rescue

I caught the tail end of this segment on TV a couple nights ago. It's a brilliant summary of the past few decades of "American to the Rescue" in the middle east. Who they propped up, who they were enemies with, who they supplied weapons to. Sure, some details are left out, but in this brief overview it's quite a shocking history lesson. I wonder if the lesson has been learned.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Lunch Time Reading

An interesting op-ed piece written by a group of soldiers returning after 15 months in Iraq.

Monday, August 20, 2007

World Superpowers

China has taken a bold step towards firmly establishing themselves as the greatest world super power. "China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission." Name another country with such power.