Duct Tape, Myths, and Divorce

UPDATE*** 10/19-2010 – after a few requests for my closing quote, I have included it as well as some of my other quotes at the end of this post.

Here is some follow up content to my message this weekend at Central.

There are 5 myths (probably more) that a person considering divorce usually believes going into it; while a person who has been divorced knows to be false:

  1. Divorce is easy. “Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary by-pass. After such a monumental assault on the heart, it takes years to amend all the habits and attitudes that led up to it.” -Mary Kay Blakely. Ask any divorced person you know whether they thought it was easy and I’d be stunned to find even one person. When you think about legal fees, separating possessions, kids, social awkwardness, living residencies, emotional issues, etc, and there is little simplicity in the process.
  2. I will have more money. “Divorce is one of the most financially traumatic things you can go through. Money spent on getting mad or getting even is money wasted.” -Richard Wagner. Many people anticipate child support but “spousal maintenance” is often overlooked. I recently heard of one person who owes $3500 a month on his ex alone. Divorce means that you will pay lawyers to communicate instead of you (realistically tens of thousands of dollars), and the fees will quickly begin to add up. One person on our Facebook page said it this way, “We communicated better during the divorce than the years leading up to it.” Studies show that women experiencing divorce face roughly a 30 percent decline in the standard of living they enjoyed while married and men show a 10 percent decline.
  3. It will be better for my kids. One person on our Facebook said that “Divorce is hardest on our children.” I’ve seen the devastation that happens to the kids firsthand by watching what my wife has gone through, and she was 22 when her parents got divorced. With younger kids they usually feel some of the blame themselves that they often carry with them indefinitely into their adult lives. Not to mention their idea of stability has been shattered and they now watch as their parents are reduced to just trying to be civil. This also drastically increases their chances that they will experience a divorce themselves as it becomes “normal” to them.
  4. It won’t bother me if they move on. “You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-authors forever.” -Ellen Goodman. While you may think that you want to get as far away from your current spouse as possible, most people don’t anticipate the feelings of turmoil that they go through when they watch that person begin to move on. If you have kids, this is exponentially more true. Imagine watching another person raise your kids part time and hearing them call another person “dad” or “mom” in addition to you.
  5. I will have less problems. Read 1-4. You will be dealing with the repercussions from your divorce for the rest of your life. As one comment on our Facebook said, “Divorce is the ‘tearing of flesh’ that God made into one flesh. You will never be the same.”

The moral of the story is that divorce isn’t remotely as painless as the world is trying to tell us. It’s not God’s desire for our lives for a reason. God offers forgiveness and healing for any mistake we make in our lives but we need to rethink divorce as the easy solution that culture tells us it is. On a side note, for those of you that were privileged enough to see the glory of my custom made duct tape wallet this weekend, here is my elementary school friend that taught me how to do it. Enjoy!

I closed the service with a quote from Lewis Smedes, “The Power of Promises”

“Yes, somewhere people still make and keep promises. They choose not to quit when the going gets rough because they promised once to see it through. They stick to lost causes. They hold on to a love grown cold. They stay with people who have become pains in the neck. They still dare to make promises and care enough to keep the promises they make. I want to say to you that if you have a ship you will not desert, if you have people you will not forsake, if you have causes you will not abandon, then you are like God.

What a marvelous thing a promise is! When a person makes a promise, she reaches out into an unpredictable future and makes one thing predictable: she will be there even when being there costs her more than she wants to pay. When a person makes a promise, he stretches himself out into circumstances that no one can control and controls at least one thing: he will be there no matter what the circumstances turn out to be. With one simple word of promise, a person creates an island of certainty in a sea of uncertainty.”

Also, here are some of the verses and quotes that I used:

“Divorce is like an amputation. Sometimes it’s necessary but it should be avoided if at all possible because it brings about a permanent disability.” Bill Doherty

Malachi 2:16 “‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel, ‘and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,’ says the Lord Almighty.”

Matthew 19:3-10 (main passage of the weekend)

“The worst reconciliation is better than the best divorce.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Biblically, polygamy is a hundred times more acceptable than divorce.” Paul Stevens

Matthew 5:43-47

The Power of Littles

Great events, we often find,
On little things depend,
And very small beginnings
Have oft a mighty end.

Letters joined make words,
And words to books may grow,
As flake on flake descending
Form an avalanche of snow.

A single untterance may good
Or evil thought inspire;
One little spark enkindled
May set a town on fire.

What volumes may be written
With little drops of ink!
How small a leak, unnoticed,
A mighty ship will sink!

A tiny insect’s labor
Makes the coral strand,
And mighty seas are girdled
With grains of golden sand.

A daily penny saved,
A fortune may begin;
A daily penny, squandered,
May lead to vice and sin.

Our life is made entirely
Of moments multiplied,
As little streamlets, joining,
Form the ocean’s tide.

Our hours and days, our months and years,
Are in small moments given:
They constitute our time below–
Eternity in heaven.

Anonymous

Divine Conspiracy – Ch.4

The Sermon of the Beatitudes (1886-96) by James Tissot from the series The Life of Christ, Brooklyn MuseumI’m continuing in Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy, and chapter four is quite interesting. Willard tackles the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12 and Luke 6:17-26)  in an a way that I have never heard or thought of before. I’ve always thought of them as a kind of list of instructions on how to live in the Kingdom of God. Willard argues a completely different point.

While I haven’t had time to soak on his take yet, there is something about his thoughts that are ringing true. Whenever my understanding of a Biblical concept is challenged like this, I am always a bit unnerved, and excited. Read the passages above from Matthew and Luke as a refresher (or for the first time) and then consider Willard’s thoughts below.

“The Beatitudes simply cannot be ‘good news’ if they are understood as a set of ‘how-tos’ for achieving blessedness. They would then only amount to a new legalism.”

“They single out cases that provide proof that, in him, the rule of God from the heavens truly is available in life circumstances that are beyond all human hope.”

“They serve to clarify Jesus’ fundamental message: the free availability of God’s rule and righteousness to all of humanity through reliance upon Jesus himself, the person now loose in the world among us. They do this simply by taking those who, from the human point of view, are regarded as most hopeless, most beyond all possibility of God’s blessing or even interest, and exhibiting them as enjoying God’s touch and abundant provision from the heavens. This fact of God’s care and provision proves to all that no human condition excludes blessedness, that God may come to any person with his care and deliverance.”

“Thus by proclaiming blessed those who in the human order are thought hopeless, and by pronouncing woes over those human beings regarded as well off, Jesus opens the kingdom of the heavens to everyone.”

“But the Beatitudes is not even a list of spiritual giants. Often you will discern a peculiar nobility and glory on and among these ‘blessed’ ones. But it is not from them. It is the effulgence of the kingdom among them.”

Expendables and Expectations

The Expendables Movie 2010Last night we had guys’ night at the movies and watched the only logical choice in that scenario… The Expendables. That’s the stereotypical guy movie with all of the legendary action stars and previews that showed little storyline and a lot of things blowing up. I looked up the reviews online and found a dismal set of critiques. As such, I watched the movie expecting very little out of it other than to have a good time with some friends.

And I ended up really liking it. Sure, there were many awful parts by all definitions (including the opening scene), but I was pleasantly surprised by the existence of a storyline, and there were a handful of great tongue-in-cheek moments of humor. I expected little and walked away with much.

Had I gone into the movie expecting top notch acting and a mind twisting plot I would have been disappointed for sure. But I was in the mood to have a good laugh with friends and we certainly got that. Having low expectations when it comes to the entertainment world is usually a good idea. It can allow you to be pleasantly surprised with a book, a movie, or even a restaurant. Low expectations are almost always beneficial in these areas.

But the reverse is true when it comes to our expectations of our marriage, our kids, ourselves, or of our view of God. When we have low expectations in areas like these we tend to get very little as far as results. These areas demand something from us and when we don’t expect anything we rarely give much. And so we ironically get what we expected, and it’s rarely positive. For us to expect a lot would mean a lot of investment on our part, and the people that put this kind of effort in ironically usually get what they expect as well. The sad reality is that I think we often switch the two and have high expectations in areas that don’t matter much and low expectations in areas that are truly valuable.

So what are you expecting?

It’s Not How You Start

I absolutely love Disneyland. When I lived in California for three years in college, it was the only thing I truly enjoyed about the state. I even got a job there but never accepted it because of scheduling conflicts. I’m always amazed at how Disneyland can transport you into a different environment, even with all of today’s technology and fast pace. And yet, for all of the greatness and standard of excellence that we know of Disneyland today, history reveals that it didn’t start that way. Watch this video below to see a few of the realities of opening day.

It would be easy to look at many of Walt Disney’s ideas and label them crazy and doomed to failure. It would be even easier to do that after the hiccups on launch day. But you’d be wrong.

How often do we start something and it doesn’t go like we’d plan, so we end up giving up? After personal frustration and criticism from others we can quickly conclude that just about anything was a dumb idea. But remember this: nobody remembers how something starts. So push through those moments of frustration and spend your time pursuing what truly matters, despite what others may say. Spend your time pursuing those passions that stem from God’s Spirit inside you and your life will have eternal impact now. And it may take awhile till you see the results you’d hope for, but it will be worth it.

Where Do Good Ideas Come From?

Here is another great talk from the TED conference. In it, Steven Johnson unpacks some of the great ideas of history and tries to trace them back to where they actually originated. At first, this may seem like a tangent of a project, but one of his examples in particular shows how critical this is.

Johnson talks about a problem in developing countries where they were given a $40k piece of medical equipment, like a baby incubator for premature babies, that work fine for a couple of years but then usually break somehow. Because the developing country can’t afford the replacement parts, and doesn’t have people trained to know how to fix them, these devices were rendered useless. But then someone came up with the great idea to build one of these out of car parts, since cars are readily available even in poorer countries. Thus the neonurture car-parts incubator was born and has been saving countless lives since.

neonurture car parts incubator

Here’s how the National Design Triennial described the invention:

“Four million babies, mostly from the world’s poorest regions, die within a month of birth every year. Many of these deaths could be prevented if a working incubator were available. Currently, neonatal incubators donated to developing countries last less than five years, some due to electrical surges or brownouts, others from lack of training on how to use them. The nonprofit organization Design that Matters teamed with the Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology, a global-health consortium, to address this urgent need to produce Neonurture, a durable, low cost neonatal incubator and isolation unit.

Understanding the system in which the incubator would be produced, used, maintained, and distributed was fundamental. Doctors in the field noted that the small trucks, cars, and motorcycles used by aid agencies could be found in the remotest of locations, along with distribution chains for replacement parts and the mechanics to repair them. A modular prototype incubator was developed using these vehicle parts: headlights to generate heat, filters for clean air convection and filtration, alarms to alert caregivers, and a motorcycle battery for power. Plans are to train mechanics to be medical technologists and to conduct clinical trials with the next-generation model, with the ultimate goal to create regional manufacturing systems to build local infrastructure and clinical skills.”

What good ideas are you working on?