the rose of kiev

I firmly believe that the most enduring of marriages are made of people who are, not the best matched, but who are the most committed fighters. Marriage isn't about finding the perfectly compatible person, even though compatibility has a helpful place.  It's much more about finding a good person to fight for who will fight for you, too. That fighting?  That bloody-nosed refusal to lay down and quit?  That's what commitment looks like. Commitment, real and long term, takes a rough strength.  Pledging vows is easy in the heat of infatuation; "In sickness and in health" is an easy promise in the midst of health and youth. It is a harder vow to hold when it is ugly and overweight, tired and sick and irritated.  It's harder to hold to when it is aging and angry, insecure and emotional. It's hard to stay when you want to leave. It's hard to still commit when it's no longer easy. But, in a marriage, we promised to commit then, too: in weak...

Even in the best of times, depression is heavy. Therefore, when additional bad stuff arises, such as an illness or an injury, the extra weight can make life a lot more difficult. But even in that, there are often extra graces for the bearing. I wrote before about the small external graces that help hold up the heavy ceiling.  But there are important and specifically-relational graces that really shine during the extra-difficult times.  And sometimes, beyond all reasoning, those graces even come straight from the problems. In a mishap a few weeks ago, Dave sustained three major scrapes - one the full length of his right forearm, a deep one on his left elbow, and a nasty one just below his right knee.  For two weeks, he was limping and wincing, slathered up with three tubes of Neosporin and fresh wrappings every morning, was in too much pain to shower without help, and took as many painkillers as the prescription bottle allowed.  He was miserable, an...

Something amazing happened when I graduated from high school in 2005.  My family was a little more than three years into my parents' divorce when I walked the stage and flipped my tassel, and when it was all over it was time for a celebratory dinner.  Uncles, grandparents and cousins crowded happily around me and the question arose that any kid from a split family dreads - do I want to have dinner with my mom's family or my dad's family?  In such a setting, the potential for family drama was off the charts. But something incredible happened.  I can't even remember who initiated it, but the next thing I knew we were at Don Pablo's and I was at the head of a table of twenty people.  My mother's relatives and father's relatives were all interspersed and passing baskets of chips, laughing together as though the clock had been set back four years and there was no heartache.  I remember little else about my graduation, but that memory sticks clear and strong and p...

I have realized that some of the most gracious and affable people are those who have a practical construction of grace in their lives. Often times, it seems those least able to point to a verse or rattle off a quote are the most able to live it in their lives with gratefulness; that those most educated in the vocabulary of grace have the most difficult time in the practicality, the street smarts, of grace. Grace is most definitely a religious word, but it's something I have more visible examples of outside of any church building. This is what I mean when I say  gracious  here: a disposition to act in kindness, pleasant, one who offers a reprieve, compassionate and forbearing. As of late I have been thinking more specifically of those who are gracious as an attribute of character. I've been in the church or church settings quite literally all of my life. I was in the pew with the floral dress and white panty hose, I was in the Christian school's folding chairs in my plaid un...

Holiness has lately become an object of fascination for me. In the Bible, the word "holy" crops up over 500 times, and that's not counting other words like "sanctified" or "hallowed". God is holy, He made the Sabbath holy, His Spirit is holy, His name is holy, His angels are holy, and He wants to make his people holy. But, pardon my unholiness, what the hell does it even mean to be holy? After some minimal online research I've put together something somewhat satisfactory. Holy is: perfect, set apart, unique, pure, sacred, of divine quality. God was emphatic about communicating His holiness back near the beginning when giving laws of every kind to His Israelites. They would give holy, eat holy, anoint holy, wash holy, sacrifice holy in a holy place , live in a holy city , commanded to be holy because they are set apart , God's showcase of holiness to the world. Holiness is something we do to show ourselves different and unique. And they...