I remember the first time I ever played cards - I mean actually played cards. Not this sit around the table and bond as we share in a game of Bridge, but a game of cards where I had a significant amount of money invested in the next card that would be turned over. As I sat at the table full of my best friends with a billow of smoke hovering over our heads I knew in that moment that there was something about this anticipation - the anticipation of not knowing what was going to be on the other side of that royal blue deck of luck that I could not stand to think would run out. I...

My perception of marriage is one that has been shaped by several varying factors. I often find myself meditating on those factors and then I realize that I need to stop allowing the influences of the world affect the ways in which I think about marriage. I have been happily married for quite some time and have to admit that there have been painful moments. In sitting to write this post, I began to consider that maybe those difficult times are a result of the impending influences on how I perceive marriage. Here is where I am in resolving that idea - marriage is companionship.

The...

Webster's Dictionary defines marriage as "the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law." I hope it is more than this. When I think of marriage I prefer the way the bible puts it: (Genesis 2:18), " Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'" This is the way I see my fiancé, granted much more than just a helper. She is my God designed partner, created just for me to add value to my life that I never thought possible....

Perceptions of Marriage 

The sun is shining and the flowers are blooming. Romance is in the air and people's schedules are filled with wedding after wedding until September. It is wedding season. While there may be a laundry list of gifts to buy, showers to attend, and trips to be planned, we still do it. We book hotel rooms, schedule flights, buy new clothes, and sometimes even try and alter our physical bodies, after all these pictures last a lifetime. Regardless the effort we do so in reverent support of something beyond ourselves. We do so to...

The reciprocating self is an idea based in relationship. Last week we discussed how essential relationship is for the function of the Trinity. The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit have individual duties that work in relation towards their identity as God. So, where does that leave us as earthly participants in relationship. 

As we enter into the covenant of marriage, something takes place - we are bound to a relationship with another. The joining of two lives together is a creation of an entirely new identity, what has been termed the USNESS. We then...

Relationships have immense power. Simple consider any of the political figures in the last twenty years, and we are easily reminded of how relationships have the power to enhance or destroy most life situations. There are relationships with strangers - those whom we bump into on the subway during our morning commute. The relationship with our grocery store - we shop with the expectation that our needs will be met. Those relationships between parents and children - often an ebb and flow of emotion dictated by the current hormonal/developmental stage of life (relationships...

Icons are "paintings of significant Christian subjects and events, which are created in a canonically defined style. Through their innate qualities of composition, subject matter, and color scheme, for nearly two thousand years icons have served as portals to a higher domain" (Zelensky, 2005, p. 13). The two dimensional paintings of Jesus, Mary and Child, and various other saints that adorn the walls of churches and cathedrals are often simply looked at as decoration by some church attendees. But what is the purpose of these stoic depictions? 

Eastern Orthodox...

Emily Bronte's beloved novel, Wuthering Heights has been critiqued, adored, taught in classrooms around the world, scoffed at, and most importantly her novel has survived the tests of time. These many experiences of Bronte's text beg the question, what has sustained her words since 1847? Nearly 175 years of explicating her sentences, studying her allusions, and for some readers, years of falling in love with her characters over and again. Many high school classrooms end up attempting to lead their students to do the latter - presenting the perilous relationship between Heathcliff...

A group of researchers/psychologists did a study involving red balloons and elementary aged children.  

Researchers took a classroom of students who had average-normal intelligence. Their teacher gave them each a red balloon. She then explained they would be playing a game. Each child would tie their red balloon to one of their ankles. When she said to go, the children would then run around the room and attempt to pop the other children's balloons while simultaneously protecting their balloon from being popped. The student who managed to pop balloons...

The following is a conversation between a married couple of 40 years: 

She says:

We have had good times and we have had bad times. But that's life, you know...I think the best thing in life about two people is when they're able to come back and say, "I'm sorry," or "I did see it wrong." He has been a real human being for me...as we grew, we grew stronger. I knew that he was good...you can feel that people love you. I just love my husband and he loves me. There's been times in our lives when I could say: "I don't think this is what I want...