"To Knot or Not to Knot?" A Case For Pre-Engagement Counseling

I've had lots of opportunities to do premarital counseling in my years as pastor and counselor. 

I've always realized though, that by the time most couples arrange for their first premarital appointment, it's almost too late to be asking the critical question of whether it's wise for them to get married at all. Usually their wedding date has already been set and the couple is well on their way to the altar. 

Some years ago I began encouraging seriously relating couples to arrange for pre-engagement counseling--or at least talk things over with a pastor or other counselor before actually announcing their engagement. That idea spread, and numerous couples began to ask for such sessions. 

As a part-time counselor at Eastern Mennonite University, I introduced an annual workshop called “To Knot or Not to Knot?” for steadily dating but not-yet-engaged couples. This three-hour seminar began with a discussion panel made up of a recently married couple, an older couple, and a divorced person, each honestly sharing what they had learned from their own relationship. The female attendees then met for questions and conversation with the women presenters and the males with the male panelists. Each couple then completed a discussion exercise using sample questions from a premarital inventory. 

A special focus of the workshop was on distinguishing between normal differences and polar opposites. Most people agree that opposites do attract, but in real life, opposite traits are sure to cause serious frustrations. This is especially true if there are drastic differences involving matters of faith and values. 

Not surprisingly, some of the young adults involved in these sessions decided against becoming engaged. This was usually because one or both were already having serious reservations and needed help either to work through some major conflicts or to end the relationship. Not a happy prospect, to be sure, but far better than having a major disruption or a divorce later.

Will pre-engagement and premarital counseling guarantee that every couple will enjoy a happy, lifelong marriage? I wish. But if it helps even a few couples avoid the heartbreak of a later divorce and establish more stable relationships, it would certainly be worth the effort. 

(adapted from chapter three of "Lasting Marriage: The Owners' Manual") 

"Not-For-Profit" Hospitals Shouldn't Make Out Like Bandits

$1.50 for a Tylenol pill.

That's what some hospital patients are having to pay for a 325 mg tablet of acetaminophen. In case you're wondering, you can order a bottle of a 100 of these from Amazon for a mere $1.49.

Then there's the example of an $84 hospital charge for a liter of saline solution that costs $5.16. And how about $333 for a chest X-ray when the billable Medicare rate is $23.83? Or $24 for a 5¢ Niacin tablet?

These are some of the outlandish figures charged to patients by certain hospitals, including many non-profit ones, as cited by Steven Brill in a March 4, 2013, Time magazine feature story, "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us".

My wife and I have personally both had good experiences in local hospitals, she at Augusta Health for a knee replacement (followed by three weeks of rehab at VMRC) and I at RMH for cataract surgery last summer, but we were fortunate to have Medicare as our primary insurer and Everence as our secondary, so we fared very well. But people without insurance but who are too well off to qualify for aid can face a real crisis.

One example given in the Time article is that of Emilia Gilbert, a Connecticut school bus driver who had to be taken to the ER of her local hospital several years ago due to a fall. She is still paying off a $9,418 bill that included three CT scans for which she was charged $6,538. Medicare would have paid $825 for the same procedures.

In spite of these kinds of profit margins, nonprofit hospitals still actively solicit donations large and small from members of their communities. Some of this may be justified by a desire to provide the most advanced medical care and cutting-edge technology available. But that money also supports the salaries of some CEO's of large healthcare organizations who are paid like rock stars. According to Brill's article, annual pay for the heads of the top ten not-for-profit hospital systems in the US range from a low of just over $2 million to a high of nearly $6 million.

Our local Rockingham Memorial Hospital has recently merged with Sentara Healthcare, which now operates ten hospitals in Virginia. I'll be eager to see how this affects costs to consumers in a US healthcare system that seems badly in need of reform.

To Mom, With Love

My good parents, Ben and Mary, around 1970

"Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. 

Honor her for all that her hands have done..."

(from Proverbs 31)

My mother, Mary Nisly, was child number nine in a family of thirteen; I was number eight in a family of nine. She grew up in a home with a father and mother whose simple faith was an integral part of their lives; I was well blessed with equally devout parents. She enjoyed reading, entertaining, gardening and traveling; so do I. My mother was a keen judge of human nature; could recognize her own flaws and those of others, and had a clear and certain sense of what was right and wrong. Sometimes, like her, I am too critical of myself and others, too intolerant of those with whom I differ, but I deeply appreciate the convictions she held.

A plucky half-pint of a woman, my mother died of cancer at the age of sixty-seven. On her gravestone is the title of one of her favorite gospel songs, “I need no mansion here below.” Her childhood home was certainly no mansion, and she died in the modest mobile home my parents bought for their retirement.

Frugal to a fault, she knew how to make her life truly rich in a multitude of ways, by her love of flowers and of vegetable gardening, by her enjoyment of nature and of raising canaries, by her love of music and books, and by her gracious hospitality and her many friendships. That was her legacy.

As a child I was blessed by her warm hugs and her stories and by her example of a quiet faith and unselfish life. She was well known in our community for the generous help and encouragement she gave her family, her neighbors, and her many church friends. Our house was a always a haven of hospitality.

My parents were far from perfect, and experienced their share of sad and distressed times. Like their own parents, they tended to be conflict-avoidant, and overstressed the need for everyone to be nice at all costs, even if it meant sweeping certain issues under the rug. But each was a far better parent than I could have ever deserved.

I hope that somehow my folks, and Alma Jean's, are still aware of the large debt we will always owe them. They have given us our life and, for better or for worse,  have powerfully shaped our life direction. Remembering their contributions reminds us of other members of our families and our many friends with whom we need to stay more up-to-date in the appreciation department.

I'd give anything to be able to give my folks one more hug and tell them how much I love them.

(adapted from my 2007 book Lasting Marriage, the Owners' Manual)

If Love is Blind, Marriage is the Greatest Eye-Opener of Them All

In Leonard Bernstein's musical adaptation of Voltaire's 18th century novel Candide, the title character is madly in love with with Cunegonda, daughter of the baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh.

In this duet the two mismatched lovers imagine themselves ideally suited for each other, in spite of their extreme differences.

(Candide's lines are in regular print, Cunegonda's in italics)


O Happy We!

Soon with the earnings from my labors, we’ll buy a modest little farm,
Our mansions will amaze our neighbors, there we'll entertain with lavish charm.

Cows and chickens,
Social whirl,
Peas and cabbage,
Ropes of pearl.

Soon we'll have little ones beside us, we'll have a sweet Westphalian home.
Somehow we'll grow as rich as Midas! We'll live in Paris when we're not in Rome!

Smiling babies,
Marble halls,
Sunday picnics
Costume balls.

O won't my robes of silk and satin be chic! I'll have all that I desire!
And someone will tutor us in Latin and in Greek, while we sit beside the fire.

Glowing rubies,
Glowing logs,
Faithful servants,
Faithful dogs.

We'll round the world enjoying high life, All will be gaiety and gold.
We'll lead a rustic and a shy life, feeding pigs and sweetly growing old.

Breast of peacock,
Apple pie,
I love marriage!
So do I!

Together:

Oh happy pair, Oh happy we!
It's very rare how we agree!

What If The First Century Church Had Split?

It could have easily happened.

In 50 AD all the factors were ripe for a major church division that could have split the church in two, drastically altering Christian history and even resulting in our having a different Bible.

The apostle Peter, the Jerusalem church's lead pastor and missionary, had crossed a line many found shocking. According to the Acts 11 lectionary text for the fourth Sunday in Easter, he had broken bread with, and actually baptized, members of a Gentile household headed by Cornelius, a well known officer of the despised occupying Roman army.

For many Jewish believers, this was unthinkable, but Peter insisted this was at heaven's urging. God's Spirit had shown him a vision of a sordid array of unclean and forbidden creatures that would have normally repulsed him, then instructed him to prepare and eat them to his heart's content, since God had declared them to be good.

This was not so much a lesson on dietary taboos as it was a powerful visual and visceral metaphor for how Peter was to overcome an equally strong distaste for fraternizing with unclean and outcast people. Any close fellowship with gentiles would once have made his stomach churn in disgust.

Just prior to this, in Acts 8, this same apostle had crossed a similar line in welcoming a group of formerly reviled but recently baptized Samaritans. But these people were at least circumcised and could be thought of as half-Jews. And they did accept the Septuagint as their Holy Book.

Another pre-Cornelius incident described in Acts 8 was that of deacon and evangelist Philip baptizing an Ethiopian. Not only was this foreigner a member of different race, but as a eunuch would have been considered abnormal in a genital and sexual way, and thus excluded from worship in the Jewish temple, along with all uncircumcised men. All of this was based on the Torah, the only Bible these early Christians had.

Fortunately, the leaders and members of the first century Christian church were also immersed in other Hebrew scriptures that envisioned former outsiders of all nations (goyim) being gathered into God's arms. And thank God the church agreed to stay together in spite of how hard it was to deal with the implications of Peter's vision and his story. Remarkably, they did this without insisting on gentile outsiders conforming to Jewish practice.

The sobering fact is that most of us would not be believers today if members of the first century church had conveniently separated into two denominations, one circumcised (and following the Torah holiness codes) and the other made up of uncircumcised Gentiles, Samaritans, eunuchs and those who sided with them. Had that kind of schism happened, the Christian faith would not have survived in its present form, and likely not have spread as it did. Furthermore, the New Testament itself may have never come into being as we know it, as there would have been a felt need for a separate set of Christian texts for each group.

Sadly, since then we Christians have separated from each other with alarming ease, resulting in estimates of up to 100,000 different denominations, sects, subgroups and offshoots of the faith existing in the world today, in spite of Jesus' fervent prayer that there be but "one flock and one shepherd," the Lord alone. "By this shall all know that you are my followers," he said, "that you show love for each other."

This straightforward test is one we have all miserably failed.

The other lectionary texts for that same week point to the problem. We Christians, and especially our leaders, have forgotten that the church isn't about us, and that our first and foremost obligation is to join all creation in glorifying, exalting and praising our Creator (Psalm 148), and to respect God's desire that all humanity be formed together into one unified and glorious "New Jerusalem" (Revelation 21), a love-filled, holy and whole people-city that is to be God's eternal dwelling place. God wants to inhabit us, not temples, cathedrals or other human-made monuments or institutions.

But we have falsely come to believe that the church is about our personal or institutional legacies, about our own ambitions for the church's shape and its future, rather than allowing our one and only God, whose primary attribute is love, to reign supreme.

In my lifetime, Eastern Mennonite College (now EMU) became one of the first colleges in the South to integrate. This happened in 1948, six years before the Supreme Court's Brown v Board of Education ruling. Even then, EMC's integration didn’t take place until 31 years after its founding, but it was nevertheless a Cornelius kind of event.

In my own family, one of my nieces, as a young adult in the late 70's, fell in love with the only African-American member of her conservative Mennonite congregation, a young man in her youth group who has since proved to be a great husband and father. But in a still largely segregated old-South community, it was an extremely hard issue to deal with. Yet after much prayer and deliberation, the church felt led to support their marriage as blessed of God. Another Cornelius event.

An even more difficult decision faced the congregation of which I was pastor during that same time period. This one involved a young couple who were new believers and wanted to become members of our church. But the husband had been previously married, albeit briefly, and our church had never received a divorced and remarried couple as members before, so their request led to a lot of agonizing over Jesus' teachings on the sanctity of marriage.

Eventually, with the blessing of Virginia Conference, our church adopted a position of accepting people in covenanted relationships with the understanding that they remain faithful to their vows and "divorce no more." Was this another Cornelius event? Not everyone totally agreed, but we nevertheless stayed together.

In the first century, the church faced the extremely divisive question of whether to welcome "goyim" (word for non-Jewish nations or individuals) into the church. In the 21st century, the equally distressing issue we’re being forced to face is whether or how we accept “gays” (word for non-heterosexuals) into our fellowship.

Meanwhile, while theologians and church leaders continue to debate this question, how are we to minister pastorally to the estimated 3-5% of our members and potential members with a different sexual orientation from the rest of us--through no choice of their own? What help can we offer gay teens and young people who are 2 to 4 times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers? How can we even reach them as long as they feel they must suffer in silence rather than risk rejection if they come out?  And if they do disclose, can we offer them a "cure" for their condition? Or if not, can we effectively support them in remaining "eunuch" and celibate for the rest of their lives?

While the latter has been my lifelong position, these are the kinds of questions that should drive all people of compassion to their knees--together.

You can access my article in the May, 2013, issue of the Mennonite "Disagreements are Inevitable, Divisions are Optional" with this link. Other posts on this topic can be accessed by typing in "church unity"  on my blog home page, on the upper left just above the word "Harvspot."

Which Should Come First, Family or Church?

A service in a Meserete Christos (Ethiopian) congregation

"Whenever someone asks me why we’re not going to church, my default answer is that it’s too far (45 minutes) and that Austin has to study (he does). I say this knowing it’s only half true, because even when we lived five minutes away and Austin didn’t have to study, we... slept in and made blueberry pancakes and watched Hulu because that’s what our generation does."
                                                                                                                                           - Motley Mom blog

For most of our child rearing years I was a busy pastor and part time teacher, and our family lived in a parsonage right across from our church. Needless to say, we experienced our share of tension between the demands of church work and our time together as a family.

We all struggle with that tension, and increasingly I hear it resolved by people saying, “We’re putting our family first,” referring, of course, to their nuclear family. This may mean their taking on fewer church responsibilities, taking more family vacations on weekends, and rarely meeting with other believers other than for Sunday worship services.

I understand the need to set priorities. Looking back, we may have needed a better balance ourselves. But I’m also concerned whenever church life tends to get put further and further down the list, after school, athletics, extracurriculars, and a multitude of other competing organizations and meetings. Or has an even lower priority than vegetating around the home entertainment center.

I agree with author Tom Sine that part of the problem is that “church has become confused with buildings, budgets, and programs,” rather than seen as a family of siblings faithfully connecting with each other as followers of Jesus. Having been a part of a close-knit Amish church in the first formative decades of my life, a pastor and member of a truly caring conventional congregation for 20 years, then a member of a living-room-size house church congregation for the past 25 years, I find it regrettable when people pit family and church family against each other. Looking back at 73, I believe being an engaged part of a people who are our spiritual brothers and sisters--and who are spiritual cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents to our children and grandchildren--is more important today than ever.

Why? Because it is not just healthy families that make strong churches, but healthy faith communities nurture strong families, especially in the absence of clan, village, and/or extended family ties that have been in place for most people in past generations. Perhaps it should come as no surprise us that an increase of breakups in marriage in our society has followed an increased breakdown of community and extended family support.

Nuclear families, and the increasing numbers of single people living alone, urgently need those connections, especially in times of crisis, but also just to help keep themselves spiritually and emotionally healthy. So its a little like asking whether ones personal wellbeing or that of ones marriage and family is more important. The answer is always both.

GuestSpot: An Ode to Love

Here's a poem a friend of mine, George Bowers, wrote some years ago based on the Bible's well known "Love Chapter," and one he has given me permission to share.

George is pastor of the Antioch Church of the Brethren in Shenandoah County.

 





I Corinthians 13

The words of Holy Scripture never tell us love is blind,
It says true love's a mighty gift, it's patient and it's kind.
It's certainly not selfish, not arrogant nor rude,
It must be daily spoken and constantly renewed.

It always preserves, it always hopes and trusts,
It doesn't rest on outward charm or foolish, selfish lust.
There's no delight in evil, it rejoices in the true,
It really should be seen in all we say and do.

Love, it does not envy, it doesn't brag and boast,
It is what we all long for and what we need the most.
True love holds its tongue, and it will suffer long,
It graciously forgives and won't record the wrong.

Our blessed Savior Jesus, showed us with those nails,
How love pays the highest price, that true love never fails.
Even when our lives get sad and when the road gets rougher,
We must remind our selfish selves that sometimes love must suffer.

Your feelings for each other, they will increase and will flourish
If this kind of holy love you take the time to nourish.
Deep faith, good hope, true love, you see, will evermore endure,
But love's the greatest gift of all, of this you can be sure.