Thinking Outloud

Back in the day when I performed weddings, starry-eyed couples would come to my church office to do premarital counseling and plan their (elaborate) wedding ceremony. I guess I never stopped to consider it much, but I assumed, as did they, that the promise to be "faithful until death parts us" was seriously considered and solemnly promised before and during the wedding service. They only had eyes for one another. Yet, I knew that about half of all the weddings I would perform over the years would end in divorce. That statistic didn't stop anybody, it seemed, from being certain about themselves. We can do it, the couple assumed. We can be each others' partner for life. I now have been in the marriage counseling field for 8 years, and practicing full-time for 6. It's not a lot of experience, but believe me: it's enough. Enough to feel like I have a new sense of the difficulties of pledging a life-long partnership, and the challenge of not only growing and ag

My latest contribution to the GoodTherapy.org website. Help! I Don’t Love My In-Laws

I really want a new Etch A Sketch. And so, it seems, do a million other baby boomers. Amazing, the power of a familiar image, in this case, a toy, being used in political speech. Ohio Art's stock value rose 100% today. Oh, my familiars. We children of the 1960's. Would that we could harness all our collective nostalgia, work ethic and imagination for good! We could make this economy sing! Instead, we are paying off our mortgages, paying our children's college loans, welcoming them back home after graduation, and helping our parents stay in their fabulous retirement communities as long as humanly possible. We are this nation's backbone. And I'm proud to be one of Us.

For all the talk in America now and forever about how spiritually diverse we are as a nation, it seems that many people have been lying to the researchers. Or just maybe have been trying to spare their mother's feelings and no longer feel they should. Here are the surprising statistics I found as I was thumbing through my latest The Lutheran magazine (3/2012, p. 8):   44% told the Baylor University (Waco, TX) Religion Survey that they spend no time seeking out eternal wisdom.    19% said it was 'useless to search for meaning.'    28% told LifeWay that it's not a 'major priority' in my life to find my deeper purpose. One of the most striking trends in religion statistics in recent decades is the rise of the Nones , people who checked "no religious identity" on the American Religious Identification Survey. The Nones went from 8% in 1990 to 15% in 2008.  So, while America grows increasingly vocal on the edges of the religious landscape, t

If you are a fan, which I am, I think you'll enjoy listening in on this fabulous interview. Meryl Streep: The Fresh Air Interview : NPR

When it comes to politics, each side of the American major two-party system holds certain beliefs about everything. Including, but not very explicitly, human beings. Conservatives (Republicans, Libertarians, etc.) seem convinced of the power of the individual. In this worldview, people have unlimited possibilities if they/we just try hard, sacrifice, invest, produce, invent and risk. The human person is strongest as the independent "I" who may contribute to the general welfare, but only because of personal choice and acting out of personal moral or spiritual values. The conservative man or woman buckles down, works hard, and enjoys the fruits of their labor, contributing to the general welfare in limited (roads, bridges, national defense) ways. Success? Well, you deserve it because of hard work, luck, or some other feature of your life. At'a boy! Think Warren Buffet, Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Liberals (Democrats, Green Party, etc.) are focused on

My newspaper column from Saturday. All the mild weather has had me thinking...and worried. Spiritual Reflections: Warm weather could be sign of a larger problem : After the winter we had last year, snow as high as our shoulders at the end of the driveway, cold that froze lakes hard and early, this winter’s non-start is a strange reversal. A dry Thanks...