Brutally Honest

Brutally Honest

Marriage
And I think a good starting place for us is a paragraph from the ‘Book of Alternative Services of the Anglican Church of Canada’ that I read at the beginning of every wedding service:

Marriage is a gift of God and a means of his grace, in which man and woman become one flesh. It is God’s purpose that, as husband and wife give themselves to each other in love, they shall grow together and be united in that love, as Christ is united with his Church.

‘Marriage is…a means of God’s grace’. The phrase ‘means of grace’ is used in the Christian tradition to describe ways in which God channels his love and strength to us. So we talk about Bible reading and prayer, coming to worship and receiving Holy Communion, as ‘means’ of grace’. The paragraph is telling us that in the Christian understanding, marriage is also a way in which God channels his love and strength to us.

Let me try to unpack this. It’s as if God in his infinite love and kindness looks at one of the human beings he has created, and says to himself, “What can I do for her to help her experience my unconditional love and strength, day in and day out, for the rest of her life?” And then God has a brainwave and says, “I know what I’ll do! I’ve got just the guy for her! As he loves her in a gentle and faithful and unconditional way, she’ll experience not only his love, but my love as well”. And then God looks at the man she loves, and says to himself, “Hey, this is a really good idea, because it’ll work the other way around as well! As they each love the other in a gentle and faithful and unconditional way, they’ll both experience my love through one another”.

This is a beautiful thing, and I hope couples can see how significant this makes their marriage and their love. It’s wonderful enough that they’ve found each other and that they have been able to care for each other and love each other in a special way. But this view takes their love even higher than that, because each of them has been given the sacred calling of being a channel of God’s love to the other.

However, there’s a problem here, and it’s to do with the definition of the word ‘love’. We live in a culture in which ‘love’ is mainly an emotional word; ‘falling in love’ is not seen as a choice you make, but as something that happens to you. you’re the helpless victim of it, and if it chooses to leave you, there’s nothing you can do about it; best leave your partner and find someone else.

But in the Bible love is not a feeling but a choice and a way of life. To love someone, in the Bible, means to choose to be a blessing to them by caring for them and helping them in practical ways, whether you feel like it or not. And that’s why we can ask couples to make promises to each other. It’s pretty hard to make promises about feelings; feelings come and go, depending on all sorts of factors. But actions? Yes, we can make promises about them.

But we can get even more clarification than this. If we accept the idea that Christians are called in their marriages to act out the love of God toward their marriage partner, we can go further and ask, “Well, what’s God’s love like?”

God’s love is unconditional. It doesn’t depend on whether or not we’re good enough. We mess up every day, but God doesn’t give up on us in disgust; he forgives us and helps us get up and try again. He is infinitely patient and kind toward us. And thank God for that!

We all experience this in our marriages, if we’re honest. How many of us have asked ourselves from time to time, “Given the sort of person I can be when I’m not at my best, why on earth does she stick with me?” I’ve certainly asked that question, knowing how hurtful I can be when I’m doing my best grizzly bear imitation!

God’s unconditional love calls us as husbands and wives to accept the fact that just as we are not perfect, so our partners are not perfect either. Just as they forgive us, so we forgive them too. In another place Paul says, ‘Do not let the sun go down on your anger’ (Ephesians 4:26); in other words, be quick to apologise, quick to forgive, and quick to be reconciled. That’s what God’s love is like; we’re called to ask him to help us imitate his love.

Connected to this is the idea that God’s love is faithful. To be blunt, this means that God does not give up on us, or leave us when he sees a more attractive and deserving subject of his love around the next corner. God has pledged himself to us and he will be faithful to us throughout our lives and through all eternity as well.

So we’re called to live that out to one another as married couples, to be faithful to one another until death parts us. And here I want to declare war on a phrase that I hear so often: the phrase, “If it doesn’t work out”. I’ve been married for nearly twenty-eight years, and I have to say that I always knew that it was up to me to make it work out. I’m not a helpless victim of circumstances; I’m a free human being with the ability to make decisions and act on them, to say ‘No’ to my selfish nature and ‘yes’ to the way of love and gentleness and grace. So I say to the couples who ask me to officiate at their weddings, “Don’t sit back and wait to see if your marriage will work out! Rather, pray every day for God’s strength, and then you go and make it work out! You can do it, with God’s help!”

Thirdly, God’s love is practical. It’s not just about high-sounding ideas or feelings, but concrete actions, giving us the things that we need for life and health and safety. When Jesus is expressing this, he says that God makes his rain fall and his sun shine on us, righteous and unrighteous alike. In his infinite wisdom and kindness God has designed his universe in such a way that our needs can be met through the good things he has provided for us.

Romance is wonderful and every marriage needs it, but if there isn’t a huge helping of practical love too, no marriage can survive. One of my favourite books about marriage is called Sex Begins in the Kitchen. And the title isn’t talking about kinky sex either! It’s saying that if the partners aren’t willing to serve each other in practical ways like sharing chores and cleaning up and that sort of thing – well, don’t be surprised if things don’t go too well in the more intimate parts of their marriage, either. That’s a special challenge to me, I must admit.

But finally, and in contrast to that, we also need to say that God’s love is pure magic. I mean, imagine if a famous person who you really admire was coming to town, someone who is looked up to by hundreds of thousands of people, but someone who doesn’t know you from a hole in the wall. Now imagine getting a card in the mail from that person saying, “Could we have lunch while I’m in Edmonton? I’ve always wanted to get to know you better!” Wouldn’t you be amazed? Wouldn’t you just be thrilled out of your socks?

But the Christian gospel has even better news. The one who is responsible for everything that exists – the one my friend Rob Heath calls ‘The Chairman of the Board of Existence’ – loves you personally and wants to be your friend! Doesn’t that just blow you away? It’s hard to believe that such a thing could be true, but Jesus assures us that it is!

Married couples who are deeply in love with each other have this same sense of wonder. “How did I get so lucky? I mean, she could have picked anyone, but she picked me!” Of course, in the early days of our relationship this sense of wonder is very strong. In most marriages, as time goes by it wanes a bit – the emotion isn’t as strong as it once was – but wise Christian couples know that this is natural and so it doesn’t scare them. What they do is to concentrate on living out the other aspects of God’s love for their partner – accepting one another unconditionally, forgiving one another, being faithful to one another, caring for one another in simple and practical ways, day in and day out. And as they do this faithfully, as the years go by something deeper and more lasting starts to grow, and one morning you wake up and think “Wow! No one told me about this!” That’s why you see elderly couples in their seventies walking down the street holding hands like teenagers: they’ve found the magic.

I hope that all of us who are married will continue to find that magic as we live out God’s love for one another. God has brought us together, and so, as we pray for his help every day, God will help us to grow into the sort of relationship that is his dream for us – a relationship which will cause other people to say, “You want to see what God’s love is like? Look at that couple and the way they live together – that’s what it’s like!”

dormgrandpop: What does it take to stay married 50 years?

dormgrandpop: What does it take to stay married 50 years?

dormgrandpop

Monday, May 30, 2005

What does it take to stay married 50 years?

In a blog written some days ago, I quoted the response of a friend to my question “what does it take to remain married for 50 years?”. “It ain’t easy” the this wise octogenarian lady responded. When I recently mentioned to my counselor that I was attending a 50^th wedding anniversary celebration, she remarked, “…one of the few marriages that survived the 60s.”

I think I may have discovered the secret of long marriages and it is quite simple. Virtually all marriage ceremonies include a solemn vow that this is a lifetime commitment. The most widely used vows (in protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic church) also include the phrases “for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do us part.” Young men and women who repeat these vows to seal their first marriage rarely have the slightest idea what they really mean – how could they. The have not experienced the moments of “…for worse” that with certainty lie ahead for them. When those moments hit, one or both partners, in about 50 per-cent of US marriages abjure their vows.

A colleague of mine, titled a recent book: Second Marriage: The triumph of love over experience. Those who marry a second time should at least know what their “lifetime” vows mean – though many of these marriages too, end in divorce. A women friend of mine, still enduring a bad marriage (her second) but contributing nothing to changing it, once described her marriage certificate and the vows it recorded as “nothing more than a scrap of paper.”

But for those whose marriages survive fifty years, their vows have proved to be ‘more than a scrap of paper.’ For whatever reason, they have created a space within which the two “partners” have chosen to make the accommodations that staying married required. Honoring the “for worse” and “until death do us part” clauses in marriage vows is obviously the first – and simple – answer to the question “What does it take to stay married 50 years?” It takes the commitment on both sides, for whatever reasons, to stay married, “for better or for worse.”

Of course that commitment does not guarantee that all marriages surviving 50 years are “good marriages”. Survival (mere survival) says little about the quality of the relationship.

Psychologist Judith Wallerstein studied 50 marriages, self characterized by both partners as “good” and tried to capture what as essential about them in her book The Good Marriage. The essence of her description, as well as the yearning for a genuinely good marriage most of us share is captured in the following quotation.

“In every study in which Americans are asked what they value most in assessing the quality of their lives, marriage comes first – ahead of friends, jobs and money. In our fast paced world, men and women need each other more, not less. We want and need erotic love, sympathetic love, passionate love, tender, nurturing love all our adult lives. We desire friendship, compassion, encouragement, a sense of being understood and appreciated, not only for what we do but for what we try to do and fail at. We want a relationship in which we can test our half baked ideas without shame or pretense and give voice to our deepest fears. We want a partner who sees us as unique and irreplaceable.

“A good marriage can offset the loneliness of life in crowded cities and provide a refuge from the hammering pressures of the competitive workplace. It can counter the anomie of an increasingly impersonal world, where so many people interact with machines rather than fellow workers. In a good marriage, each person can find sustenance we all feel in the face of frustrations about having to yield to other people’s wishes and rights. Marriage provides an oasis where sex, humor and play can flourish.

What is required for a "good marriage?" Minimally, I believe, it requires that both partners make their commitment to the marriage a priority. They have to work at it, but not too hard, – and play at it too. When people marry, they often assume that the marriage part of their lives is ‘handled,’ by virtue of their marriage vows, giving them license to move on to other priorities – career, good works, a passionately followed hobby or avocation, children, other relationships and the like. In my entire life, I have only witnessed one marriage that rose to the level described in Wallerstein’s book, though I believe my parents 50+ year marriage may have approached it, at times. I am no longer close enough to my friends in Cleveland to judge, after a short visit, where their marriage fits on the continuum between mere survival and a good – even great – marriage.

Actuarial realities make it highly unlikely that my own second marriage will endure to celebrate a 50^th anniversary. And I don’t regret that my first marriage did not. All in all, I am ambivalent about 50 year marriages, though the very best of them appear to have repaid the couples who invested in them with substantial dividends. Perhaps only those who have had the experience are in a position to judge thoughtfully.

My Way News - Iraq Leader Lashes Out at U.S. Critics

My Way News - Iraq Leader Lashes Out at U.S. Critics

Iraq Leader Lashes Out at U.S. Critics
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Aug 22, 7:54 AM (ET)

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

(AP) Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malki speaks during a joint press conference with his Syrian... Full Image

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Iraq's prime minister lashed out at American criticism, saying Wednesday that no one has a right to put timetables on his elected government.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed the U.S. presidential campaign for the recent tough words from the Bush administration and from other American politicians.

"No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people," he said at a news conference in Damascus at the end of a three-day visit to Syria.

"Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria. We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution and can find friends elsewhere," al-Maliki said.

U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said Monday that al-Maliki should be ousted and replaced with a less sectarian leader.

In addition, both President Bush and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on Tuesday voiced frustration and disappointment with the al-Maliki government.

The harsh exchange erupted just a few weeks before Crocker and the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, are to report to Congress on the success of the latest military campaign to reduce violence in Iraq, and the Iraqi government's progress in achieving political reconciliation.

Without naming any American official, al-Maliki said some of the criticism of him and his government was "discourteous."

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�

Top 10 "Hillary Actually Said This"

“ 10. "It's been said, and I think it's accurate, that my husband was obsessed by terrorism in general and al-Qaida in particular." (Hillary telling a post-9/11 world what a great commander in chief her husband was; Dateline, NBC 4/16/2004.) 9. "I have to admit that a good deal of what my husband and I have learned [about Islam] has come from our daughter." (Circa 1996, at a White House function, Hillary proudly tells some Muslim groups she is gaining a greater appreciation of Islam because Chelsea was then taking a class on the "religion of peace"; TruthInMedia.org 8/8/1999.) Note: See No. 4. Muslim groups, with ties to Hamas, were welcomed at the Clinton White House. But not Republicans. 8. "Many of you are well enough off that [President Bush's] tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to have to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." (Hillary to her fellow liberals in a speech in San Francisco; SFGate.com 6/28/2004.) 7. "Why do I have to keep proving to people that I am not a liar?" (First Lady Hillary in her 2000 Senate campaign; "The Survivor," p. 382, by John Harris.) 6. "A right-wing network was after his presidency...including perverting the Constitution." (To Barbara Walters about the Republicans who impeached her husband; 20/20, ABC 6/8/2003.) Note: Even though it is common knowledge what Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky and a cigar, Hillary claims the Republicans are the perverts. 5. "Son of a bitch." (Hillary's opinion of President George W. Bush when she found out he secretly visited Iraq just days before her highly publicized trip to Iraq; "American Evita," p. 259, by Christopher Anderson.) 4. "What are you doing inviting these people into my home? These people are our enemies! They are trying to destroy us!" (Hillary's reaction to an aide, when she found out that some Republicans had been invited to the Clinton White House, circa 1993; "The Survivor," p. 99, by John Harris.) Note: She said this just months after Islamic terrorists bombed the World Trade Center, attempting to kill everyone at the WTC complex. 3. "I mean, you've got a conservative and right-wing press presence with really nothing on the other end of the political spectrum." (Hillary complains about the mainstream media, which are all conservatives in her opinion; aired on C-Span, 1/19/1997.) 2. "Come on Bill, put your dick up. You can't **** her here." (Hillary to Gov. Clinton when she spots him talking with an attractive female at an Arkansas political rally; "Inside The White House," p. 243, by Ronald Kessler.) 1. "You sold out, you mother******! You sold out." (While an intern on Capitol Hill, Hillary Rodham yells at a prominent Democrat lawyer because he was representing someone from a large, profit-driven corporation; "Inside," p. 213, by Joseph Califano.)

Value Discipline: Fear, Corrections, and Regret- Crisis of Confidence

Value Discipline: Fear, Corrections, and Regret- Crisis of Confidence

Fear, Corrections, and Regret- Crisis of Confidence

Corrections happen. They are painful, come up spontaneously and unexpectedly, frequently take your breath away and replace your confidence with fear. It is important , at least in my view, to remember at times like these, all of those factors that brought you into capital markets or your specific investment holdings in the first place. Don't let yourself be spellbound with fear.

The flurry of liquidation will subside as redemptions end, as valuations come to irresistible levels, and as anxiety diminishes. Though bargains, in my view do not yet abound, considerable valuation opportunity has opened in the last week. One day leaps of faith represent little indication of anything beyond traders' bravado. Risk adjustments are taking place fairly quickly in the corporate bond realm, and it is important to recognize that you as the owner of the equity have the bottom rung or the residual position.

The malaise of the junk bond market spills over into equity markets fairly easily. Spreads which had narrowed to silly levels of 60-70 basis points over Treasuries now find themselves in a more reasonable, but hardly generous 250-280 basis points over. Think of equities as being the lowest form of junk debt to put the proper perspective in place. Hence, risk premia in Discounted Cash Flow models must open up to reflect the fact that the bond guys are getting their pound of flesh, at long last.

Though the housing market has gone to hell in a handbasket, this is hardly news. There is no entitlement to home ownership for someone with bad credit or no dough...if you think otherwise, get real. If you are worried about your CDO holdings, despite having an "investment grade" tranche of BBB, get real. There is a reason that those who were yield hogs, got slaughtered and chances are, your going-in yield on the BBB tranche was some 200 basis points over where more "normal" credits traded. It ain't going to be pretty if you find yourself stuck in one of these situations. Liquidity dries up and the only enticement is offering your tainted merchandise with a lower price. The old investment adage "the first loss is the best loss" often applies. Being mesmerized by fear of taking a loss is a horrible trait that most of us (and especially men!) have.

Make an honest assessment of the quality of your investments. If it smells (i.e. cash flow from operations is negative, increased working capital is needed as a percentage of revenues as revenues grow, increased capital intensity, diminishing interest coverage, falling profitability) just sell it. If retained earnings is a negative number on the balance sheet, your company may be selling on hope rather than fundamentals. You probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. Take time to learn what the credit rating of the underlying bonds and debenture of your equity investments might be. Despite their poor timeliness and recently tainted reputation, the bond rating agencies can generally distinguish good interest coverage from bad. If your company is below investment grade in its debt ratings, you may be in for a rocky ride as the equity valuation adjusts to the increased yield on the debt.

There is little solace in this great Buffett quote, "You can't tell who is swimming naked until the tide goes out." Central banks around the world injected almost $300 billion in liquidity on Thursday and Friday of last week to try to fill in for where the tide had gone out. Fear is rampant out there, apparently even among central bankers. Don't let it mesmerize you!

Personally, this feels more like a panic than a crisis...more of a rough patch that may last weeks rather than a "drag your guts in the gravel" crisis. I have heard or read three warnings of the present market resembling a pre-crash 1987 scenario...I doubt it. Unless bond and money markets becomes so disabled that we need 150-200 basis points to clear merchandise, I don't sense more than another 5% of downside in aggregate averages. Who knows? Mr. Market seems quite despondent and may overshoot my objective.

Though many investors seem to want to see a Fed rate cut, its negative impact on the dollar could reverse the flow of foreign capital...I am not counting on such Fed action.

What to do? In my view, it is late to try to raise cash. In my view, you may regret not having taken sufficient risk in buying some equities in this weakness. What's on my shopping list?

Though it flies in the face of most strategists' advice, I like a number of financial services stocks. US Bancorp (USB) and Citi (C) are two of my choices among large domestic banks. I like Allied Irish (AIB) and Credit Suisse (CS) as well for international exposure. Even some community banks, which I have avoided for some time are starting to look more reasonable to me.

Some of the business services companies such as payment processors and tax preparation companies look interesting. Kartik Mehta of FTN Midwest Securities is interviewed in this week's Wall Street Transcript (subscription required.) These companies generate a significant amount of cash flow and a significant amount of recurring revenue and have low capex needs. Frequently, they tie into small business but also have some bank exposure. Companies like First Data (FDC) and Alliance Data (ADS) have already been chased down by private equity. By the way, I continue to believe that private equity deals will continue to be part of our investment scenario for at least the next year. In the business services I like Global Payments (GPN) and Total System Services (TSS)

Here is an interesting screen of companies that have bought back stock, every year for the last five years, in excess of stock issuance as well as pay better than a 2% yield, and that are down more than 10% in the last month. This is not a buy list, but an explore list. There are some companies hear that I would not touch!

Stick to your discipline and show some patience. Buy stocks that you feel comfortable with over a longer period of time. Buy into businesses that if Mr. Market continues in his anger, you will feel comfortable to step up to the plate again and adding to your positions at even better prices!

Ignore the histrionics and the hysteria. Like your batting coach told you in Little League, "You've got to keep swing ing the bat." There should be a fair number of fat pitches coming our way!

Disclaimer: I, my family, or clients have current positions in USB, C, AIB, CS, GPN, AZN, CMA, FII, and TOT.

Entering the Tough Oil Era | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Entering the Tough Oil Era | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

oil output in the United States and most other non-members of the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) has peaked, or is about to do so, which means that the net contribution of non-OPEC suppliers will only diminish between now and 2012. That, in turn, means that the burden of providing the required additional oil will have to fall on the OPEC countries, most of which are located in unstable areas of the Middle East and Africa.

The numbers are actually staggering. Just to satisfy a demand for an extra 10 million or so barrels per day between now and 2012, two million barrels per day in new oil would have to be added to global stocks yearly. But even this calculation is misleading, as Eagles of the IEA made clear. In fact, the world would initially need "more than 3 million barrels per day of new oil each year [just] to offset the falling production in the mature fields outside of OPEC" -- and that's before you even get near that additional two million barrels.

In other words, what's actually needed is five million barrels of new oil each year, a truly daunting challenge since almost all of this oil will have to be found in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, and one or two other countries. These are not places that exactly inspire investor confidence of a sort that could attract the many billions of dollars needed to ramp up production enough to satisfy global requirements.

Read between the lines and one quickly perceives a worst-case scenario in which the necessary investment is not forthcoming; OPEC production does not grow by five million barrels per day year after year; ethanol and other substitute-fuel production, along with alternate fuels of various sorts, do not grow fast enough to fill the gap; and, in the not-too-distant future, a substantial shortage of oil leads to a global economic meltdown.