What Kind of Marriage Advice have You Heard?

I love my wife and I love finding ways to serve her as a husband ought. So I like to read material that has particular insight in this area. There are sundry articles entitled things like "Ten Things Your Husband Wants You To Know" or "What Your Wife "Really Needs From Her Husband". There are books by Christian and secular authors with all kinds of good or okay teaching and advice.

I've read enough of these that I have a categorization system for the advice and teachings I find. I have four categories, or echelons, of increasing insight. The first echelon comprises behavioral advice. The second echelon comprises emotional insight. The third echelon comprises instruction in worldly wisdom. The forth echelon consists of insight into spiritual wisdom. Interestingly, each one is predicated on the conditions of the echelons above it such that one must be spiritually wise in order to adequately evaluate worldly wisdom, a couple must be steeped in wisdom to meet each other's emotional needs, and a couple must practice meeting emotional needs in order to produce ideal behaviors.

The behavioral advice of the first echelon generally consists of the typical admonition to only have sex with whomever you are married to and be nice to each other. For many people this is the only echelon with which they are concerned, and even still they struggle with it. It's not enough to simply be told not to commit adultery. It's not enough to be told to be nice to each other, even though particular ways of doing this are iterated. So the commercial comes on the radio and you hear people telling how they have made their marriages better and I hear people say things like, "I talked to my wife on the phone from work and listened to her. She likes it when I listen."

The fact is that we each go through periods of bad behaviors. Ok, cheating on your spouse may be a deal breaker for most, but spouses may get grumpy or snap at each other. A fellow I know is married to a woman who is manic-depressive. Most of their married life is spent at odds with each other as a result. But the trust he has for her extends to the point of understanding that she doesn't really want to be the way she is. And her trust in him is an understanding that life with her is difficult and he sometimes gets upset as a result.

As for not cheating on your spouse or not being abusive, the only way to have self-control is to be spiritually wise. It's part of the gift of the Spirit. You won't want to do what's right if you aren't motivated by the Spirit. Otherwise, you are only motivated by the desire not to lose your spouse and that only lasts as long as you really want your spouse around.

The emotional insight of the second echelon usually contains therapeutic information with heavy doses of the author's personal experience as examples. Emotional insights focus on spouses being more sensitive to each other's emotional needs resulting in specific behaviors. For example, typical insights are for husbands to help their wives out around the house and listen to them without offering solutions because that's what women need. Wives are admonished to try to have more sex with their husbands and act like they admire them because that's what men need.

The insights here are typically not biblically found, but where there are biblical references, they are often contrived. I hate when I read otherwise good therapeutic insights from Christian counselors with attempts to back it up with biblical references that would be recognized as poor hermeneutics by any decent theologian. For example, Ephesians 5 doesn't instruct a wife to love her husband. This doesn't mean that she shouldn't love her husband and there's nothing in the text from which to reasonably extrapolate anything supporting the observation that most men are wired to yearn for the respect of their wives. Now it's good to observe that most men have some motivation in a marriage to be respected by their wives, but no Christian teacher should use a passage from the Bible just because he thinks he needs to find one to support an empirical observation. Sheesh.

Between the third and fourth echelons, I draw a distinction between worldly wisdom and spiritual wisdom. This is an important distinction, but without clarification, it may be lost on many people. Worldly wisdom is the wisdom of experience and practicality. It's the realm of common sense and is limited in its scope to the immediately observable. Worldly wisdom is not intrinsically bad, but not intrinsically good either. Worldly wisdom is passed along in humor where mixed motives serve to neutralize any impact of informing the attitudes of listeners. As such, these nuggets of "wisdom" can be apprehended by people with both good intentions and bad intentions.

This worldly wisdom of the third echelon can range in depth. On the lower end, a husband may make a comment dismissing his buddies when wife calls him by saying, "I better get this, the boss is calling." In the middle are such cute sayings like the old couple when asked if their marriage is "fifty-fifty" by smiling coyly and saying "seventy-thirty". You don't usually get much of an explanation as to what they mean by that. But on the upper end, you may get a serious author who seeks to enlighten couples that their "differences are meant to compliment each other." That they each have strengths and weaknesses and where one is weak, the strengths of the other exist to cover for them. No mention is generally made of the reasonable supposition that both may be strong or weak in some of the same areas. Nevertheless, it can be a fruitful teaching if the couple takes it and earnestly tries to work together as team as such, trusting each other's strengths and handling each other's weaknesses with grace.

The fourth echelon is lost on most people and most authors never truly address it. The reason is that they presume that if you read their book or article, that you already have some desire to work on your marriage and therefore already love your spouse on some level. They are content to leave it at that. But such is only a prelude to spiritual wisdom. Good marriages are predicated on Truth, but Truth is more than mere facts.

The cornerstone of all truth is the gospel itself and Christ himself is the Truth. This is why in Ephesians 5 Paul links marriage first and all human relationships to the gospel of Christ in his submission to meeting our need for salvation by his submission to death. The unity of the trinity is the submission of each person of the trinity to each other in such perfect unity as to demonstrate their absolute union: He is indeed one God and this is the love of God. Our created purpose is to demonstrate this love in communion with him as well as with our temporal relationships with each other.

This is my spiritual wisdom with regard to my wife, that I see her as God sees her. Christ gave himself for her while she was yet a sinner and the Holy Spirit now lives in her sanctifying her daily. It is therefore my purpose to cooperate with God with regard to the sanctification of my wife, building her up as a child of God and not tearing her down. Whether she returns the favor or not has no bearing on my submission to her spiritual needs, except that learning to similarly submit to my needs is a part of her sanctification, not that she should find frustration and discontentment in submitting to my needs, but that she should find fulfillment and satisfaction in it. This is spiritual wisdom.

Looking back, therefore, I could never have married a perfect woman. It's not that there really are such people who are perfect, but rather that too many people either unrepentantly believe that they need no forgiveness for anything or that they are caught up in the trappings of always appearing to be perfect. For perfection is to be complete, needing nothing. If I find fulfillment and satisfaction in meeting my wife's spiritual needs, then what use would a perfect woman have with me and how could a perfect woman give me any fulfillment? Likewise, my submission to my wife's needs also entails being able to be transparent with my own needs to her and vice versa.

Are you married? Do you consider yourself integral to your spouse's sanctification?

Are you single? Don't presume that you will find fulfillment in a perfect spouse, for we don't gain perfection aside from the cross of Christ.

Whatever Happened to Courting?

Apparently, "hooking up" is the new norm. Where once teens dated a few times and if things worked out they might have sex, now it seems that they have a sex a few times and if things work out they might go on a date.

When I was in high school, you "went with" someone until your parents let you go on a date. That was the 80's. You got to see your girlfriend or boyfriend at school, the mall or a party with a bunch of other people around. That was the 80s.

What's the purpose of "dating" or "hooking up"? At that age, kids aren't likely to marry their high school sweethearts. Hormones are in full swing, but making commitments and keeping covenants aren't taught sociologically. With a divorce rate over 50% there's little concept of purpose in relationship. Boys enjoy sex without commitment and girls hope that having sex will eventually lead to commitment, but the boundaries of respect and honor have been all but erased.

If there is no established goal of monogamous marriage, there is no purpose beyond mere narcissistic self-fulfillment. Even the desire for commitment as a reason for sexual submission is self-depreciation for the sake of self-fulfillment. That's just plain irrational.

My wife and I dated. We were adults and dating was normal. We actually started spending time as friends. We enjoyed hiking and watching movies together. Once we realized that there was something more developing, we called our getting together "dating". When I went away to school, I fought tooth and nail to see her nearly every weekend. One weekend my car broke down and she drove the two and a half hours to my school to come get me so we could be together. We were ready to commit and I did what few do anymore: I spoke to her dad.

Before the phenomenon of dating there was courting. Even as young adults the suitor would call on a woman in her home where others were present. They would sit together and develop a relationship with the intent of eventual marriage. If the two were idologically or developmentally incompatible, this would soon be discovered and marriage would be averted. If the two were in agreement, then the suitor would appeal to the woman's father or other familial advocate or defender for her hand in marriage. The point is that the relationship was predicated on mutual honor, respect, and devoted commitment without which a marital covenant will run afoul.

Whatever happened to courtship? I suppose I could guess at the degradation of western culture. Aren't we supposed to all be responsible and free to do whatever we want to do as long we don't hurt someone else? Aside from the fact that this fails to presuppose the fallen nature of mankind, a failure to honor others is harmful to the defense of their boundaries. Inasmuch as others are complicit in the degradation of those boundaries, they likewise inflict harm by not holding the other accountable.

Finally, children are harmed by the lack of self-respect their parents unwittingly place on them by allowing the degradation of the culture to inform their lack of values. Why else are such as teen suicide, cutting and murder on the increase?

Wisdom has been replaced with such as street cred and ill-placed liberties. May we come to our collective senses sooner rather than later.

What Is a Godly Friend?

When the Bible uses the word "friend", generally the context indicates that the word is used in the normal sense. That is, friends are those with whom we share a congenial relationship. It's a relationship that can change: Friendships develop where there were no friendships before, friends part ways or become less than congenial, new friends are made.

But there is a sense where the Solomon draws a distinction between mere companions and true friends:

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24

This follows not long after this proverb:

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Proverbs 17:17

To be sure, the Proverbs are not to be understood as legal commands or doctrinal absolutes. They are general observations designed to highlight underlying truths. Solomon no doubt saw his share of deadly sibling rivalry. He wasn't saying that all brothers should or do strive against each other always. In fact, to be a successful peacetime king after all the familial turmoil in his father's family, he had to distance himself from his siblings.

Parenthetically, one wonders about Solomon's friends. First, he was king. The king knows of true friends? Second, he had how many wives and concubines? I've seen monogamous wives make history of their husbands' premarital friendships. What do you do for friendship with enough wives to populate a village? He must have been wise.

But the observation has to do with the attitude of one who seeks many companions versus one who values a very close friend or few.

A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray. Proverbs 12:26

If your goal is your own popularity, than your self-glorying will quickly lead you away from God. Only God is worthy of glory. But to have a close friend who can know you intimately enough to hold you accountable is more valuable as one who can help bring you closer to God.

Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. Proverbs 27:6

Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel. Proverbs 27:9

Interestingly, Solomon makes another observation:

Wealth brings many friends, but a poor man's friend deserts him. Proverbs 19:4

Solomon expands on this sad state in Ecclesiastes 4:

7 Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:

8 There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
"For whom am I toiling," he asked,
"and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?"
This too is meaningless—
a miserable business!

9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:

10 If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!

11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?

12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

There is much value in friends. Jesus Himself indicated that our temporary wealth should be used to garner relationships:

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. Luke 16:9 (ESV)

I don't know how I've read over that verse as often as I have. Here, it is recognized that although friends come and go, there is some eternal value in having godly friends. And this value is far greater than any worldly wealth that comes and goes.

But John's account of Christ has us being willing to invest a far greater value for our friends:

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

In my book on boundaries, there's a sense in which sacrificial giving is unhealthy. When friends make undue demands on us, then it is healthy to enforce boundaries. Where we see a friend in dire need (as in the Ecclesiastes passage above) and we can help, we ought to. Christ did. He left his friends to fend for themselves so he could go spend time alone with the Father. But when the time came, He indeed gave His life for his friends.

To sum up, godly friends

a) stick closer than a brother,
b) give wise counsel,
c) inflict beneficial "wounds" if necessary, and
d) are willing to give sacrificially for their friends.

So, the question that yet bothers me is what one does when one lacks a close friend. It is a bit of dissatisfying advice to be told that we are responsible for having godly friends when we cannot force anyone to be our friend. Where we cannot be responsible for someone else, but only responsible to them (think about that one for a while if you need to) we can only be responsible for being a friend, not for having one.

If we are commanded to love our enemies, how much more should we extend friendship to those who do not have a friend? That's not a stretch. That doesn't mean that we have to be intimately close to everyone, but we do need to minister friendship in the name of Christ should any have great need that goes unnoticed lest they fall.


All quotes from the Bible are NIV except where indicated.

The Counsel of Godly Friends

You don't need close friends to find godly counsel. However, our best godly counsel comes from close godly friends.

David suggests that we need to have godly brothers and sisters in the faith that we can go to from whom we can seek godly counsel when we need it.

I get similar advice from other sources. The book on boundaries that I am reading says that making close friends is a responsibility we have. The problem I have with this is the reality that we cannot force anyone to be our friend. In fact, even the Bible indicates that we should not be friends with some people (Proverbs 22:24, 2 Corinthians 6:14). I've known people who are so socially backwards that there's no one who would or even could be their friend. If you are such a person, how do you make friends if you don't have a friend to teach you? That's where you need to find godly counsel who isn't necessarily your friend.

Even if you are socially acceptable, that still doesn't mean that you will be able to develop friendships. It is possible that no one will want to be your friend, close or not. In this case, it is important that you pray about it. God has a way of answering prayers. Even if He doesn't answer immediately in the affirmative, He can bring you to the point where you can function without friends according to His purpose for you. And to this end, if you are praying with a right heart, your will is bending to the will of God and He can use your loneliness to His glory.

Here's something else I notice about what David says here. It's important to understand that a close friend is someone who is willing to tell you the truth about yourself no matter how badly it hurts. If you seek godly counsel, you don't need someone who will simply agree with you. You need a someone who has the type of relationship with you where they can tell you the truth in love without doubting each other's motives.

Next: What is a Godly Friend?

Meet My Friends

I find many people on the Internet who suffer from a deficit of friendship. To some degree, I’m one of them. I’ve been studying friendships and relationships in order to come to a Biblical understanding of what a friend ought to be. In planning a post on this, I discovered the need for personal context. So, before I post what I’ve found on friendship, I'll convey some of my personal situation out so you understand where I’m coming from. Many do this to a painful degree. Many shouldn’t. Many who do, do so because of a personal friendship deficit. I assure you that my personal walk goes much deeper than what I write here, but this gives you enough to apprehend what I plan to say in the next post(s) regarding friendship.

I have many friends. Just a few of them are on Facebook, and that’s over 200. Many of the people I see on a regular basis are at church. Others are Christians in my town and region who don't go to my church. I have friends in my family throughout the region as well. These include my wife's family. I have friends in my family in other states. I have friends around the world from High School, college and my days in the Marines that I have reconnected with through the Internet. I have other friends that I have made through contact primarily on the Internet, either through mutual interest or a mutual friend. I have friends from other countries in Canada, South America, Africa, Asia, Europe and other places that I have met through missionary endeavors. Franco is my friend. He owns the cleaning service that cleans my office. When I see him he always says, "Hello, my friend!" You could say that my wife is my best friend. She knows more intimate details about my life than anyone else, including my brother and parents - and she still loves me. I have a group of men I meet with each week. We pray for each other and lift up our churches, communities and nation in prayer. These are my friends. I meet with another fellow for discipleship. He's my friend.

I have friends that share different aspects of my life occasionally. I have friends that share my love for music. I have friends that share my desire to know God better and may challenge my thinking. I have friends that share my love for our Lord and encourage me by our mutual worship of him. I have friends that share my desire to go to the ends of the earth and make disciples of all the nations.

While I have regular contact with many of these friends, however, there are few with whom I can share much of my life. Meet my closest friends:


My wife, Lois:

As I’ve said, she knows more intimate details about me than anyone else. We learned in pre-marital counseling that it is unreasonable to expect a spouse to fulfill all of our emotional needs. We need to maintain close friendships outside of marriage that support the marriage. Ideally, these close friendships should be with people of the same gender. In other words, I need to have close male friendship somewhere.

My Reunion Group:

Tommy P, Tommy H, John, James, Eddy, Chris and Steve are my Reunion brothers. The title “Reunion” comes from the notion that we are united in Christ even when we are apart and we come together in reunion regularly to hold each other accountable, encourage each other and pray with each other. We are to support such things as our marriages and involvement in our churches. As it is, we typically only see each other for a couple of hours each week, so we generally aren’t involved in the mundane or tangential aspects of each others lives.

My Brother, Mark:

We’ve known each other all his life. We’ve been through a lot together, having been uprooted from a small Midwestern town and transplanted in the red clay soil of the American Southeat, enduring the death of our mom and the formation of a combined family when Dad remarried. We worked at the same burger joint together in high school and hung out with the same barflies before we matured spiritually. We were each other’s best men. He lives a bit far to get together on a regular basis, but we get to see each other from time to time. I’m slowly absorbing a book on boundaries in which it investigates family dependency. It says that when emotional dependence within a childhood family results in a failure to learn to establish healthy boundaries, then proper boundaries have not been created within the family and must be established there in order for good boundaries to be learned and established elsewhere. I don't think we're at that point, but there is a sense in which a godly friendship must go beyond the familial.

Margaret:

An older lady, she was my neighbor and fellow church member since 1979. I watched her kids grow up being only a few years younger than I. Her daughter’s oldest is about the same age as my oldest. I was around when her husband passed away. We’ve sang in choirs on and off together since I was in high school. Now that we go to the same church again, we sing together at church as well as with a small Christian choir called Cantamos that occasionally sings in different locations in our region. So, we see each other a few times a week at church and elsewhere.

Kim:

My Internet buddy, she’s a friend of another woman who goes to my church. We share the mundane things in our lives nearly every day. I don’t have contact with another person as often as I have with her. With all my friends I still spend most of my time alone. She fills some of those lonely moments with a burst of life, an assurance that someone is still alive out there who cares enough to ask how my day is, even if from hundreds of miles away.

Shelby:

My adopted Internet daughter, she’s had some ups and downs in her young life, but I’m excited to see how well she continues to grow and mature into what we pray is a godly woman.

That’s pretty much it. These are my closest friends.

Over the past year and a half, I’ve learned of a deficit in close male friendship. I have my reunion group, but there’s a sense in which one may need more. I’ve often overheard friends talk about getting together at each others’ houses on a regular basis for a ball game or going to see a movie or some such. These are things for which they have common interests. Any time in the past where I have enjoyed friendship with others, we typically did whatever interested them. Most friends lack interest in the things that interest me most deeply.

Primarily, none share my penchant for creative recategorization of information for the purpose of observational synthesis. To this end I have provided my own example through the juxtaposition of Bloom's Taxonomy and the scientific method. How many got the reference in the first sentence? How many even understand it given the explanation? Let me try again. I'm an accountant of information. Inasmuch as accountants recategorize monies to track cash flow, analyze trends and synthesize budgets and business strategies, I do the same with information. Is that more understandable? With whom can I share this or which of my friends can appreciate this to the extent that they can help me make such cogitations useful? This interest of mine spills over into a multitude of activities from improvising, writing and performing music, to physical analyses, to philosophical mind-benders to theological truth-seeking, to the desire for mission endeavors, to the sense of humor that very few seem to find particularly humorous. (Puns – when the pun is so intricate you have to explain it, it just loses its oomph altogether.)

A close friend is someone who knows where you hide the key to your back door and knows they are welcome to use it. Close friends have boundaries that are much closer than for the majority of our friends. My deficit of such a friend continues, although I am resigned to the fact that it simply won’t happen outside of God’s providence and that such may not be His plan for me. Once, I sought godly counsel where my counselor expressed confidence that it would happen and encouraged me to be more gregarious. I’ve found, however, that gregariousness increases the quality and opportunity for friendly contact in social situations, but doesn’t necessarily generate close friendships.


Next: David Moss encourages us to seek friends who can give us godly counsel.

The Nakedness of Adam and Eve and How a Measure of Separation Makes Us Closer

From Genesis 3:

8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" 10 And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." 11 He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" 12 The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

I've speculated on this recently in an online debate with a supposed female who is pro-pornography and tried to justify her position on a Biblical basis. The issue of nakedness is directly tied to sin in the account of the fall. In fact, nakedness is the first recorded awareness Adam and Eve had of the knowledge of good and evil. Testing the exegetical acumen of my opponent I speculated unnecessarily on the reason nakedness may be wrong is that Adam and Eve hid their nakedness from each other because they projected the sin of their own thoughts on the gaze of the other. My opponent didn't catch the planted error and I was able to ascertain the weakness in her presuppositions and debate effectively against her.

The fact is that Adam and Eve hid their nakedness from God rather than each other. My speculation isn't necessarily inaccurate, but it doesn't follow exegetically from the passage. So what is nakedness that it needs to be hidden from God or anyone? If nakedness is an issue as a result of sin, then nakedness is a projection of the guilt of the individual on the state of one's personal presentation in relational matters. Let me unpack this:

I have evil thoughts. We all do. If I have evil thoughts, then I know I am subject to scrutiny in my behavior and appearance as a reflection of the evil within me. Therefore, to minimize the scrutiny I desire to hide my true self and project an image that is more pleasant: an image of a person I desire to be rather than the person I really am. This desire may be rooted in a fear of being caught in sin, fear of broken relationships or an earnest desire to glorify God. Everyone has the first two reasons in life. (The third reason is only had by Christians for only the living God works through grace to His own glory for His sake as well as the sake of the elect. All false gods are created to demand mere adherence to a set of rules only for the sake of their adherents.) Whatever their reason here, Adam and Eve hid from God because they feared His righteous judgment on them. That was their nakedness.

But I consider that as they fleshed out their sin in their own relationship, nakedness became a barrier even for them. As Adam looked at his wife and Eve looked her husband, each realized that their vision of each other in their nakedness was tainted with scornful scrutiny. This pattern exists today. Don't believe me? Show up in town tomorrow without a scrap of clothing on your body and tell me how it goes. Why wouldn't you want to do that? Do you fear that others will look at you judgmentally? If you go into town and someone hops out of their car without a scrap of clothing on, would you fail to scrutinize them in the least? Would you treat them as though nothing were out of the ordinary? Would you avert your gaze to avoid seeing someone naked or stare so you can get a good eyefull?

Wearing clothes and acting like we don't have evil thoughts are an attempt to avert the judgment and scrutiny of others. It enables us to develop the close relationships we need as social creatures. This means that we cannot know of each other fully intimate details. We are, as it were, in a quarantine of sorts. We can be in fellowship with each other so long as we can keep our sinful tendencies hidden and only act on the righteousness available to all.

As an aside, I'm not advocating a lack of confession among believers, but rather it is wise to confess specific sins in certain confidence and only return to the account of any sin publicly in a limited manner as a matter of testifying about what God has done to forgive us and restore us.

Likewise, God clothes us so that we can avert His eternal judgment. Even as He clothed Adam and Eve in the skins of animals, the first sacrifice, He clothes us in the righteousness of His Son through His atoning sacrifice. The covering on the one hand hides our sin from God and on the other opens us to reconciliation with God.

This separation for the purpose of closeness is the necessary paradox of all our relationships in this fallen world.

Personality Perspicuity

I just took Dr. Phil's Personality Test on my Facebook. It's not that I hold Dr. Phil (or Facebook tests for that matter) in high regard. Pop psychology does not truth make. This is the resulting canned, computerized analysis:

Your Dr. Phil's Personality Test Score: 47

Others see you as someone they should "handle with care." You're seen as vain, self-centered, and extremely dominant. Others may admire you, wishing they could be more like you. However, they don't always trust you, hesitating to become too deeply involved with you.

First, I notice that this purports to elucidate others' opinions rather than the test-takers own self-image... by asking questions about the test-taker. The only way I know that such questions could be accurate indicators is if it is demonstrated that the opinions others hold normalize relationships with the test taker that are consistent with common human experience resulting in predictable indicators in the emotional and behavioral construct of the test-taker. Otherwise, such a test is mere sophistry.

I can't speak for the way others view me. Assuming that this test is accurate, I'll compare this to who I really am and how I want others to view me and see if there's something that can be done about rectifying the difference.

"You're seen as vain, self-centered..."

I would say this is accurate. The fact that I'm posting this is evidence. Of course, we all are. But the human will is not so monolithic to stop there. I suppose I could stop eating, because feeding myself is rather self-serving. But if I die, then that just places a burden on others. In conversation, everyone I know are self-oriented. I've counted the items of self-interest that people offer to others and my self-discourse is rather low. In fact, I make it a point to ask others about themselves before I say anything about myself. I truly am interested in others. Few people return the favor and ask anything about me.

So the perception doesn't wash with reality. Here in these virtual pages I'm an author writing to a general audience and must necessarily be transparent, but in real life I'm either very quiet or boisterously enjoying the company of others. I often refrain from being transparent in real life because I fear being seen as self-centered and I'm aware that much of my considerations are incomprehensible to most. Can you imagine someone striking up a casual conversation on the debate on free will between Luther and Erasmus or the problems with string theories in quantum mechanics? It's not polite to confuse people on purpose.

"You're seen as... extremely dominant."

I seriously doubt this. People don't ask me to lead anything precisely because they don't see me as extremely dominant. I'm not a type A personality in the least. It's not that I can't lead. I'm just not perceived as being dominant enough to lead. So, I find it difficult to assume that this is true. Often, I call someone's name to get their attention several times before they realize that someone is talking to them. I'm clueless as to how to get people to listen to me when I have something important to say, and at my level of intelligence I have much that is important to say. I've just learned that other people will figure it out on their own without me if given enough time, so I usually keep my trap shut.

"Others may admire you, wishing they could be more like you."

With regard to music, this is obvious. Musical performance is overt and many have expressed a desire to perform music like I do. I have had some indication that people believe me to be intellectual. They generally don't seek me out in this regard, however.

"However, they don't always trust you, hesitating to become too deeply involved with you."

I can see this, but I don't understand it. Perhaps they perceive that I'm not very transparent. Maybe if I talked about myself more, they would think that I was less self-centered and trust me more. No. This is the difficult balance. People trust transparency, but not conceit. You become transparent by talking about yourself. You exude conceit by taking about yourself. You build relationships by exchanging information about each other. Almost everyone I meet doesn't want to know anything about me, so they don't ask. I try to encourage a relationship by asking people questions about themselves and offering bite-sized pieces of information about myself if they don't ask.

I suspect that most people don't want to become heavily involved because they sense that there is more to me that they cannot tap into. My wife and I watched National Treasure last night. At some point she made some offhand reference to "intellectual geeks". I asked her about it and she said people like this make normal people like her feel stupid. I think this is the key: if people don't trust me it's because they cannot understand me and I challenge their self-image.

Oddly, it's the "least of these" type of people I can most easily befriend because they don't have any illusions about their place in the world. If I want to spout off something they don't understand, they don't get put off by it. They just say they don't have a clue and love me anyway. I think this is part of what Christ was talking about when He said we needed to be like little children. Adults believe they have something to lose by following Christ. Children know they don't.

God can be difficult to understand. Some deal with it by resorting to anti-intellectualism. They say, "I don't understand all that stuff, so it doesn't matter." Others deal with it by creating a small god that they can understand. That's dangerous. Children know they don't understand and struggle to grow up so they can. May we struggle in our relationship with God and out relationships with each other so that we can learn to understand better.

Have You Thought About This, Lucy?

Linus actually has a pretty good start on a decent Reformed epistemology. But what do you do when your thought life primarily consists of what is represented here by Linus' discourse and most of the rest of the world responds to you like Lucy?

The Tale of Two Movies - True Masculinity

I watched two movies with my wife this past weekend. The first is the classic 1942 movie, Holiday Inn. I've seen it a few times, but my wife had never seen it. So late Friday night after the kids were in bed we watched it together.
Saturday evening my wife and I had a Valentine's date. She's taking our Venezuelan missionary to Alabama this week so she won't be around for V-day. I took her for a movie and a nice dinner. We saw the new movie 27 Dresses. Katherine Heigl has a classy look about her that seems to be in style these days.

I enjoyed the movie but it has today's moral setbacks. The alcohol use in the movie is little different than that of Holiday Inn. There were a few mild vulgarities used as expletives. There are more considerate ways that I demonstrate for my kids to display disdain, but these were not exceptionally burdensome. There was the normalization of illicit sex among consenting adults alluded to, which is something I didn't appreciate. June, the main character, was known to not do such things although the OSS was between her and one of the two love interests.

So you've never heard of an OSS? I'll make a parenthetical and explain it to you. OSS stands for “Obligatory Sex Scene”. These are often written into novels and screenplays without adding any meaningful movement to the plot. If you've ever heard the commentary from directors as to why they cut scenes from movies, you know that the primary reason is that some scenes interrupt the flow by not contributing anything to the movement of the plot. Think of the OSS in any less-than-X-rated movie you've ever seen. Take, for example, the car scene in Titanic when you see the sweaty hand smear the rear glass. It added nothing to the plot or character or relational development. The relationship between Rose and Jack had already been established and didn't need this for any emphasis. Most OSSs are implicit, but some don't leave much to the imagination. The fact that you are led to imagine anything is indicative of the intent to normalize illicit sex in our culture.

I couldn't help but to think that it's not cool to dance like Fred Astaire anymore. Today that kind of dancing isn't considered to be very masculine. When I told people that I took my wife to see 27 Dresses, it was generally assumed that she talked me into going to it when I actually wanted to see it! I asked my wife about this. She said essentially, “Don't get me wrong: you aren't the macho type. The guys who are the macho type tend to be mindless.” (Thank you, Dear!)

I know who the macho types are. I see them at the gym. They're kind enough because those are the rules at the 'Y'. I've been recovering from a pinched nerve and have been strengthening a wee little muscle in my right arm that has atrophied. I'm fair in enough exercises, but just as I had built my bench press of ten reps up to 115 lbs, the pinched nerve had dropped it down almost to the bar weight of 45 lbs, all because of a little shoulder muscle. I know these guys look at me pressing the bar and struggling with 65 lbs chuckle at my wimpiness.

Machismo existed back in the 1940s, but there was no doubt that men who refused to act macho were still masculine. Today, if I got up and started dancing like Fred I wouldn't receive much applause. I might receive some funny looks and many would assume I was light in loafers. What happened to respected tailors, chefs, bakers, etc? Oh, they still exist, but now we have to make it acceptable by putting the word “iron” in front of it and turning it into a sporting event. Does anyone want to try the fish that the Iron Chef turned into ice cream? Sure, if you have an iron stomach.

The reason I bring this up is that we observe that masculinity is on the decline today. But how can this be when we had the likes of Fred Astaire in the limelight in the 40s? I suggest that this is the reason machismo is increasing today. Have you seen the pictures of bodybuilders back then versus bodybuilders today? Forget the development of steroids. There's a reason men puff themselves up physically and egotistically today. They are less secure in their masculinity.

My wife is right, but it's not so much that the macho are mindless. Confidence is worn like Jane wears her weddings in 27 Dresses. The confidence of the macho is a struggle for acceptance. Even the “metrosexual” are following a trend. True confidence for a man is being secure in the masculinity that God has given him. But it goes beyond this.

[Warning! There is a spoiler in this next section if you haven't seen 27 Dresses!]

In Holiday Inn, Linda is willing to marry either Jim or Ted. She would prefer to marry Jim, but will marry Ted who has demonstrated a willingness to commit to her. In 27 Dresses, Jane has spent years desiring to marry her boss, but although she's in a position to win his heart, she viscerally decides he's not the one and runs after Kevin, who she had dismissed, now feeling that he is the “right one”. Of course, it's a cute story and we, the audience, agree that she should marry the other guy.

What I notice here may seem subtle, but I think it’s the worst part of the trend. In the 1940s, one could better trust that another committing to marriage would be inclined to keep their commitment. There was divorce then, but it was much rarer. Today, the divorce rate is high enough that one could only insecurely hope to remain committed. 27 Dresses pointed to the fact that couples put all kinds of resources into big extravagant weddings and fail to put the same sort of care into the marriage. Jim wouldn’t marry Linda until he had enough money in the bank to properly care for her. His life as a performer focused on events and no doubt he could have put on a huge bash of a wedding, but his purpose with Linda was the marriage afterward.

True godly masculinity is when a man is devoted sacrificially to others. Today’s machismo is when a man is devoted to himself. When Jim went to Hollywood to win Linda back, he wasn’t going for his own sake alone, but in the knowledge that Linda really wanted the life he had to offer. When Jane realized that Kevin loved her enough to leave her to her own decision, she realized that he was demonstrating a respect for her that indicated his capacity to commit. What is missing in many men (and I dare say women) today is the maturity to look beyond one’s own desires and seek what is best for someone else. That's true masculinity. It provides the security that women desire: a security that mere machismo can only imitate. A security that says to a potential mate, "I'll be there for you, support you and husband you with all that I am. I'll pursue your needs and best interests first. I'll seek the wisdom to guide you so that you can grow to your full potential as my wife."