Marriage, Girls and Terror

I heard an ancient Babylonian saying that went something like “Treat your mother like a queen”. I’ve thought about that one a lot, I thought it was great. I think my philosophy on women goes something like this:

Treat girls like princesses, your wife and mother like the Queen.

I know that it may seem a bit old fashioned and perhaps a little chauvinistic, and that there are many girls who don’t want to be treated any different from guys. But I’m happy to be both of them if it means I treat women well. I know I didn’t always have that view of women. If you’d asked me when I was in year 10 I would have said “Treat everyone the same”, but since then I’ve changed my mind. I think it was because I’ve see too many guys who don’t treat their girlfriends well and it’s annoyed me. I think it’s because my Mother told my that my Father has utmost respect for women, and I realised that I admired that about him. I think it’s because I’ve noticed that I’m going to marry a woman (rather than a man) and I want to treat her well. I think it’s because women are a lot better looking than men.

I’m thinking about this because tonight’s small group was about relationships. Discussions and studies on relationships always get me thinking a lot. I think marriage is one of the things I am passionate about.

I’m also thinking about it because I was watching Ben Kingsley’s character in last night’s movie and thinking about what I admired in the way he treated his family, and what I didn’t like.

In tonight’s group we were asked to write down three things we value in relationships, and a list of the things we thought were the positives and negatives in our parents’ marriage. We were told that the three things we wrote down were probably a reflection of the things you didn’t like in your parents’ relationship. So if you wrote that you valued affection then you probably felt your parents weren’t affectionate enough.

The problem for me was that I couldn’t find anything I didn’t like about my parent’s marriage. I am in awe of my parents’ marriage, and as much as I thought, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it.

My list was a reflection of the things I valued in my parents’ relationship, but it was also a reflection of the things I had seen go wrong in the relationships around me.

I am aware that I have grown up in a strange place. My parents’ relationship is like the model marriage. I come from the Brady Bunch home, I have an abnormal family that is much more blessed than I can express. We are like we are because my parents love each other so much, work hard at their marriage, and are really good match. My parents both think the other one is fantastic.

On the flipside side of that, the other major influences on my views on marriage are the relationships of the families that I grew up with. Way too many of them went bad. I have seen too many of my “secondary parents” split up. And as little as it seemed affect me when it happened, I still seem to be processing it today.

So the result of this is that I have very high ideals for marriage. I have this romantic dream of a fairytale marriage. I have dreams of making my wife feel like the most important person in the world, and loving her till I die. But on the other hand I’m terrified that I’ll stuff it up. I’m terrified that I don’t have the grace, commitment or love that my parents have. I’m scared I’ll ignore my wife, or I’ll cheat on my wife, or I’ll stop loving her after 3 years of marriage and spend the rest of my life in a sterile, non-aggression pact.

I have high ideals and a terrible fear of reality. I know what I want, but I don’t think I can get there.

I think one of my biggest fears is that I’ll commit adultery. It’s funny because I’m one of the least promiscuous people I know. But I’m scared that somewhere below the surface of me is this man that will always be seeking fulfilment in the arms of a “better woman”.

I hate what I haven’t even become. Perhaps this is a good thing, perhaps it is just paranoid.

As a result though, I am determined to make my future marriage work. I am determined never to cheat on my wife. I am determined never to abuse my wife. I am determined not to ever be rude to my wife. I am determined to always think my wife is the best. I want to treat my wife like a queen. I want to love her like Christ loves the Church.

I have said before that I don’t find Romeo and Juliet romantic. Anyone can fall in love for three days. If asked me what I thought was romantic I would say an eighty year old couple that has been married in a loving, committed, relationship for the last sixty years. When I think about love, I think about waking up next to my wife after years of marriage and realising that I don’t want to be married to her anymore, and then working like hell to make it work, honouring my commitment and my wife, and loving her with everything that I have, so my feelings will again fall back in line. That is real love, love that is not about feelings, but about selfless commitment.

I know that sounds very un-romantic. But for me, it’s perhaps what scares me and excites me about marriage the most.

I went to the beach again today. All by myself. I've never done that before.

I've not been blogging much recently because I've had nothing to blog about, or I've been too busy doing things that I could blog about, but I didn't have time.

That said, I now don't have time again. I just had about 45 minutes set aside to blog, but managed to talk to Helen for most of them. Perhaps though, talking to people is more important than blogging about talking to people.

Ryan and I watched House of Sand and Fog last night. It was very good, but very depressing. It was very well written, and as Matt once commented the characters were very well developed. The problem was you just finished it feeling horrible.

Oh it's meeting time so I'll go have it now.

I'm going to the beach today.

And seeing as tomorrow is going to be damn hot, I might go then too.

Contrary to not having enough time to do everything I need to do, God is managing my time very well (it must be God because I have the time management skills of a brick, that is, assuming bricks have no time management skills, however they do tend to do well at doing everything they need to do in the time they have to do it so perhaps a brick is a bad choice.)

In the past few days I have run a lunch time group at a high school, run 2 Bible studies, written a Bible study, written a sermon, written my last assessment for college this year, re-hashed a Gospel talk and been to a 21st. And between now and 11:30am tomorrow I will give a Gospel talk, do a drama workshop, go to a 21st, practice a sermon, give 2 sermons, and change my clothes too often. I haven't been stressed, and everything has fitted quite nicely, and the rest should fit nicely too. Calm I am, and it's lovely. My only disappointment is that I'm not at the beach.

I am going to wear 4 different outfits today. I feel like a girl.

Sometimes I feel like deserve better than this. Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve anything at all. Usually the second feeling comes quick on the heels of the first.

I've spent all day at home. I've managed to rewire the "entertainment unit", jump with Hannah, write a sermon, read a lot of news articles, watch TV and do some washing up. And I feel like I've been un-productive, I think that is the problem of having more to do than you have time to do.

Last night at the pub we had Get-to-Know-You question time. One of the questions was "What has been the most memorable fart of the day?" I think perhaps that question should be asked every day. It'd make me laugh.

There isn't much food in my house.

There were three girls in my Scripture class yesterday who said they became Christians. That was very exciting.

I have a Veggie Tales tie and an assessment due in tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'll get it done by then. I'm going to try.

I'm also going to try writing Sunday's sermon today. That should happen. I'm almost ready to start my run at the computer. One more shouting session in the kitchen, perhaps a quest to Hornsby for lunch and then I'll be typing my little heart out.

I'm meant to be writing an assessment at the moment so I'm signing petitions to end AIDS.

I reckon you should sign it too.

Phantom of the Opera: The Movie. Cool.

Telstra put a halfpage ad in the paper today telling them to go to a gayporn site instead of Casey from Idol's site. That's funny.

Story here.

"If only my life was more like 1983
I'd could just be a little, fat, bay-bee" - Tom Mayer

I don't like it when you watch movies or tv shows and you see a character who is just like you.

Actually that bit isn't too bad.

The bad bit is when you spend the whole time feeling sorry for them.

All before breakfast

Because Mum and Dad are on holidays in Melbourne I woke up at 8am this morning to go pick Hannah up from respite. I put on yesterday's clothes and shoes with no socks. I intended to go get Hannah, drop her at school and be back in bed by 9am.

When I got to the respite place they said Hannah had a sore on her leg and we should keep an eye on it. Hannah was walking funny, but she seemed happy enough so I took her to school. I told them what was going on and to call me if Hannah was unhappy.

I came home called my parents, then was about to get ready for bed again when the phone rang. It was the school they wanted me to get Hannah and take her to the doctor. So called the doctor, made an appointment then hopped back in the car and went back to the school.

From there we went to the doctor. The doctor saw Hannah, perscribed some antibiotics then said see me in a week. Hannah and I went back to the school. As I was taking her to her classroom a bird pooed on me.

From there I went to the chemist, but they couldn't give me the persciption because I didn't have Hannah's health care card. I walked to the other side of Hornsby to get to a pharmacy that could give me the medicine. As I walked I thought about breakfast, my dirty clothes and the bird poo in my hair.

Once I had the medicine I went back to the school who told me I had to get a form filled out by the doctor to say that she could have the medicine at school. I also had to organise a form for Hannah's respite place so she could have her medicine there tonight.

I came home had a shower then went to the doctor with the forms. They said they'd be done by 2pm. I hoping they call soon.

Once that was done I came home and had some breakfast. I haven't bothered going back to bed.

Maybe I wasted that last quote there. Perhaps I should have saved it for something romantic. Oh well, I always have Van Morrison and Have I told you lately for wooing the ladies.

Today I wooed no one. I had fun though.

In drama we were rehearsing a scene for church next week. We have an American girl with us, so, just to make me happy, I made everyone (me included because I was filling in for a missing actor) speak with an American accent, except the American girl, who had to be Australian. It served no purpose except to amuse me, and amuse me it did. Actually I think we all found it pretty funny.

Later Rach and I went driving. She's getting good. She's very good on windy roads now. (That's windy where the road does a lot of turning, not windy where there is a lot of air moving around at high speeds. Are they spelt the same?)

Tim and I hung out at the shops and had laughs.

I did the talk at youth and that was harder than I thought it would be. I got nervous. Funny that. I couldn't quite work out what I was nervous about but that's ok. I guess it wasn't the easiest talk in the world. It was a "sin" one. It was on Acts 4:36-5:11.

What did I learn from this talk? I got a desire to see the young people of the Church have the courage to stand against sin. I got a desire to see them change the Church in the future by being ruthless on sin (not people). I learnt, personally, that I need to hate my sin. I'm too complacent, and I am too complacent with sin in the church.

We went to church and we started the service with an aerobics routine. I was up the front being led by a dancer and I did real badly. I was trying my hardest, but truly, I suck bad when it comes to moving coordinatedly. But at least I think some people laughed.

After church we watched Australian Idol. I was going for Casey, until Guin complained that she was too young. Then I felt a little guilty for voting for her. Perhaps I have some responsibility if fame ruins the poor girl's life. I hope it doesn't.

But destroyed lives aside, I'm glad she won. Anthony was too smooth and good looking for my liking. Any man that's better looking than me shouldn't be winning Idol. I know that means that not many men would be winning, but at least it would make me feel better about myself.

"Freedom has a scent like the top of a new born baby's head" - U2

I got it! I got U2! I got How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and I'm loving it. I'm on play number two for the day.

I went to Borders at 9am this morning to get the cd before going to work. When I found out they didn't that the Ultra-Super-Fantastic-and-Too-Expensive Special Edition, I had a terrible dilemma. I ran around to all two open stores in Westfield to see if they had it, and they didn't. In the end I had to settle of the Quite-Super-Reasonably-Priced Special Edition. I'll get the other one later and figure out what to do with the extra cd.

I drove to work (late) listening to the CD very loud and very happy. I had to drive the back way to church so I would arrive a little later and wouldn't have to stop the cd in the middle of a track. I finished the cd on the way home tonight. Yeah baby!

"Oh you look so beautiful tonight" - U2

I'm off to do talk number one tonight. It's feeling alright.

I have decided that, because I am spending so much time writing talks, but having so little time between them to let them affect me, I am going to figure out what I learn from each one.

Tonight's passage is the Sheep and the Goats.

I've decided that I need to love Christians more. Honestly love other Christians in my life. Especially the difficult and needy ones. It's easy sometimes to hide behind my busyness and my job to not have to help people. But I shouldn't. I should be looking for ways to serve my brothers and sisters in Christ, not doing it out of professional or religious obligation.

Often it's a joy to serve others, sometimes I need to work on it.

It annoys me when you watch a live DVD of a band and they don't just show you the concert. Like when they put artsy bits in or have talking over the top of songs. I don't mind talking, and I don't mind artsy bits. But when the music's on, just give me the music, just show me the show. Get your hand of it and keep the rest for the special features. That's what I reckon.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb comes out so soon, and I'm getting itchy. I'm getting restless. I'm getting impatient.

I have 4 talks to write and deliver between now and Sunday week. The thing that is exciting me about it is that I will be reading, thinking about, reading about, and teaching a lot of the Bible between now and then. I realised today that it's kinda nice to immerse yourself. I find I'm driving along making connections between all the different passages I'm speaking on, and thinking about all the different Bible verses. It is fun.

Right at the moment my head is full of Anna and Simeon, the early church, and Sheep and Goats.

I should be stressed, but I've given up on stress for the moment. It wastes my energy. These days there's too much to stress about, so I can't really be bothered putting too much effort into it.