The Oppression of Divorce

When I returned to Savannah I was asked to conduct the marriage of a High School friend at one of the City's old historic churches.

He was divorced as was his bride.

Standing there in the black robe I bought for $10 from a Preacher going out of business I quoted Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Eli Wiesel.

"God's greatest gift is the chance to start over."

And the Bride and Groom cried because they had the chance ... and they were taking it.

Afterwards they thanked me for pointing out the Elephant in the room by acknowledging their divorces and still believing in love.

I remember walking through the moss draped Square after the service thinking about the oppression of the divorced.

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit," says whoever wrote the Psalms (34:18) and divorce certainly breaks hearts and crushes spirits.

I also wondered why it's the Church orchestrating so much oppression of the brokenhearted and crushed people so near the Lord?

Somehow the Church made it into one of the Ten Commandments ... "Thou shalt not get divorced" though it's not certainly not one!

"But Jesus says," according to the modern day Pharisees (e.g. Fundamentalists and other shallow thinkers) "whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery" ... and adultery is one of the Ten Commandments!

This verse if from the Gospel of Matthew and is the "Jewish" version of Jesus.

Quick lesson on the New Testament ... Paul's letters were written first ... THEN comes Mark ... closely followed by Matthew a couple of years later ... Luke was a decade after that ... and whoever the hell wrote John came out a decade or so later.

Just like Paul's letters were written to certain churches the Gospels were written for certain audiences.

Realizing everyone who knew Jesus personally was dying off Mark assembled his sayings and birthed the first Gospel which Matthew quickly plagiarized giving it a Jewish slant!

Lesson over.

The verse about not divorcing your wife unless SHE has sex with somebody else ... but it's okay if the husband does ... was all about Matthew trying to slowly bring the Jews over to Jesus' way of thinking ... by Jews I mean ancient Pharisees who believed in rules more than anything else.

Fast forward back to now.

It's a shame Pharisees run most Churches!

When I got divorced (X 2) lots of people ... church people! ... said horrible things when I was just trying to survive my broken heart and crushed spirit.

The same thing happened to Sarah and, because she comes from a background even more conservative than the First Baptist Church of Port Wentworth, Georgia, it was worse.

"Whoever does not love does not know God because ... God is love," I John 4:8.

A lot of divorced people know this WAY MORE than Church people.

Awesome you are!

"Awesome you are," is the first message I see on my Facebook page.

My friend Kyle sent it in the middle of the night. I've done some "coaching" with him as he transforms his life into the things he loves rather what others want him to do.

It's a nice way to start the day.

Clicking over to LinkedIn I enter a conversation I started weeks ago. Every day new folks contribute something and I read this from Tim!

"I can honestly say that I have not seen the injustices that you have seen or done half the good things (You know what they say about good intentions); however, I do believe that you were where you were meant to be at those times and that there is no way on Earth you could experience all that and not be changed."

Blown away I have to sit back!

Something special seems to be happening and I try to give it the space it deserves.

I have many friends and family members going through major life changes. Some transformations are wanted though others were completely uninvited. Babies are born, divorces devastate, jobs trap friends into sustaining without enjoying and God is content to keep quiet.

I make time to send these folks love, support and good Karma. They're family or clients and I'm intensely focused on them. As Tim explains, I'm where I am meant to be at this time and the things I'm experiencing keep changing me."

"You blessed many people by your actions or just by being present," is the next message.

I think we are all either a blessing or a curse to one another.

Blessing requires deliberation and action. We get off our ass and do something for someone while cursing means not giving a damn and we don't do anything. I prefer the blessing activities.

"We all are effected in some way by what we experience, it's what choice we make with those changes that determine how we grow and who we are from that point on," is the last part.

I turn the computer off and prop my feet on the railing of the back deck.

Over the past few years, I've had a hand in friends learning from experiences and making choices to change and grow beyond what they've always known. We've communicated, visited and had prolonged conversations where I was the one who believed in them.

I think more than anything else ... what's most important to us ... is too physically and spiritually have someone who believes in us when we struggle to believe in ourselves. We need someone whose "been there and done that" and will hold our hands in the dark places.

The fact of the matter, you are awesome!

Even awesome people need someone to believe in them when they struggle believing in themselves!

It's okay!

Now is the time for you to embrace how awesome you are!

It begins when you start doing things for you! Like having someone who believes in you!

Like now!

Making Love, not war

My Dad went to the unveiling of the Korean War Memorial in Savannah, Georgia kicking and screaming. We made him go though he wanted nothing to do with it. I can't say that I blame him much. He had a rotten time in Korea!

Having lied about his age and getting in the Marines as a member of Dog Company, Dad was promptly captured by the Koreans, escaped, captured again and then shot when escaping again. He was left for dead but wasn't and made his way back to his platoon and was promptly sent home. He never said anything about having a good time.

Decades later when America remembered we had been in Korea at all, Memorials were unveiled. The one in Savannah has the names of each member of Dog Company. The survivors names are in one color and the ones who didn't make it home names are in another color. Dad cried like a baby as he rubbed his fingers over the names of the dead.

He proudly served his country but didn't give a goddamn about the war ... any of them.

"I think its a crying shame," he once told me over beers in the Shipwatch Lounge, "that a lot of guys think the highlight of their life is a damn war. There are more important things than that."

His attitudes about war had a big influence on me.

Of course I grew up in the 60s when the anti-Vietnam War movement was at its zenith so I was indoctrinated in "Make Love Not War" philosophy. And I confess I try to live this way, making love with Sarah every single chance I get and never declaring war on anybody. Every time I think about declaring war on anybody, we make love and I forget all about it.

So I got to thinking.

Memorial Day should certainly be about remembering those who have sacrificed anything or everything to keep America free.

But, wouldn't it be great if we also remembered all of the love that they made?

They made love before they made war and, if they were lucky enough, they went back to making more love.

That's how David, Angi and I got here. Dad concentrated on making love when he got back from the war.

And when he did look back on it, touching the names of his friends who had died, he sobbed like a baby and walked away from it.

Then he went and kept making love ... right up until he died.