Buying Shoes

For a number of weeks I had been eyeing up a particular pair of shoes in the shop window. I finally persuaded my mum to give me the money to buy them, so off I set with high expectations. My friend worked as an assistant in the shop and he served me. “Can I try on that pair of brown shoes in the window please?” He brought them over. My excitement was very quickly tempered as I realised they were too small. There was no way I could get by with them. Seeing my acute disappointment he said, “Let me see if I have a size up from these in the store.” Off he went as I sat hopefully waiting. He returned with another pair and said, “Here, try these.” Having slipped them on and done a circuit of the shop I said in my delight, “Great, these are fine.” At which point he laughed out loud. “That is the same pair of shoes”, he said, “I just went round the corner and stood there for five minutes. I haven’t been to the store room!” He eventually went on from that shop to a job with a large shoe company, and I, every time I enter a shoe shop, have become much more careful!

It makes perfect sense to try on a pair of shoes before purchasing them. And this reflects some people’s attitude to marriage. “If it makes sense to try a pair of shoes before you purchase, than we are going to move in together before marriage to see if we are compatible. We are going to give it a trial run.” Perfectly sensible logic except that it is flawed.

With the high break-up rate of marriage it is not hard to understand why people think they should take every step possible in order to be sure their relationship will last. However, Scott Stanley of the University of Denver says there is no research evidence anywhere which indicates that living together before marriage increases the possibility of the marriage being a success. In fact the opposite is true. The risk of break-up increases. Couples who live together before marriage are fifty percent more likely to break up than those who remain apart before the wedding. “But we are in the 50%” who won’t break up” some might say. Well, how can you be so sure? It is a big risk.

You can’t practice permanence. Marriage requires full commitment. “If the shoe fits, wear it!” might be true for your feet but not your relationship.

Father File: The Pregnancy.

In the bar after the game, a friend, with great joy, told me that his wife of a year was now pregnant. We celebrated – he had a beer and I, being teetotal, had a mug of tea and some sandwiches. Many years later and far from there, I too found out that I was going to be a dad as my wife of less than a year was expecting. There was no beer, no mug of tea and sandwiches but deep down I felt like laughing. Thereafter there was a large quantity of Opel Fruits and Oranges consumed by my wife in that phase where there are strange cravings. Alas also, my wife had lots of sickness, which made me greatly appreciate the blessings of being a man. Occasional and debilitating man-flu is enough for me!
It struck me that there are so many things over which we have no control: you never know if you will be successful in conceiving in the first place: then you have no idea how your wife’s body will react: you don’t know if the pregnancy will go full term: you have no control over the sex of the child. Science and scientific knowledge is fantastic and we can live with the impression as human beings that we have it all sussed. But we don’t really. We are not total masters. Pregnancy and birth is one of those reality checks. We can do our best to increase the chances of success but we are not ultimately in control. It reminds us that there is still mystery and it ought to keep us humble.
Then came the books. I read none but digested them second hand late at night as my wife paraphrased them out loud while I tried desperately to listen to Radio 5 LIve at the same time. The birth facts were fascinating. The information very, very interesting
Equally mysterious, the scan. At 14 weeks exactly there is a small child in the womb, with its head moving, its hand reaching out and its wee legs bent underneath. An amazing sight, perfectly formed. The Irish poet, Paul Muldoon described an early black and white sonogram of his child in the womb as resembling nothing so much as a satellite map of Ireland, whereas a few weeks later it was so well defined he could see everything. Remarkable.
During those days I did not really know what to expect in the coming months. People can tell you about it up to a point. But nothing can adequately prepare you for the actual experience except for this – it would have been nice to have talked with other new fathers.

Servanthood.

I had never really appreciated the impact of the foot-washing story in the Christian Gospel of John, Chapter 13 until I went on holiday once to Greece. What prompted a red-head to venture to such a hot climate in the middle of summer, I just don’t know - It was scorching! In fact up to 900 people had died because of the heat that summer. The other bewildering fact was how many of the Scottish people in our group lay on the beach for long periods and barbecued themselves.

Having tramped around Athens one day I was tired and exhausted. Our group were required to wait for the bus to take us back to our camp site. (Now that’s another story – sleeping in a tent in a heat wave................) Anyway, there am I meandering about waiting for the bus. I wandered over to a fountain and put my feet in it. Suddenly in a eureka moment I appreciated the story in John 13. It was fantastic having my feet cleansed in a cool fountain. Absolute bliss. Cool feet. Clean feet. It was wonderful.

The servant-hood in John 13 is an example to us all. What can I do for my wife or partner which will give them that unexpected bliss and blessing. If I chose to find ways to bring that sort of rich experience to my partner what a difference might that make to the climate of our relationship. And it need not be something spectacular.

We had a visitor one day who came to tea. Having 3 children our kitchen often looks out of control (you can blame children for anything!) When all was finished about 7.30 we took the children to bed, fully expecting that after the bed-time routine we would descend at 9pm and have to start into the kitchen clear-up. To our surprise and utter delight, our visitor had cleared and washed the dishes and the kitchen was done by the time we reappeared. It was a foot-washing moment. We were so pleased and felt great and very, very thankful.

So. What might you do for your partner or a couple or someone you know, who could do with a foot-washing moment?

Father File: Father's Day.

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, He....

I have been remembering you
More often these days.

The warmth of your
Gentle hand-shake.

Your mild-mannerdness,
Integrity and the wide respect
You enjoyed.

Your quiet presence
In our home kitchen.

Watching you in your vest
With mirror, brush and razor,
Shaving in the early morning scullery.
Mountains of toast
And porridge for seven mouths.

But this, mostly.

You placing my picture
Twice in the Coleraine Chronicle.

Grow Old Together

We were walking along the road, by the sea. I was engaged at the time and she had been married for a number of years. As we chatted about marriage she said about her husband, “I just want to grow old with Charley.”

This came to mind recently as I listened to a track on the latest Glen Campbell CD. ( Remember him.......By The Time I Get To Pheonix, Wichita Lineman, Gentle On My Mind?) He has been away for some time and this was his new album. It is like an effort to create his old distinctive sound of the past. But at the end of the album he has a wonderful song called, “Grow Old Together” which to my surprise was written by John Lennon.

It is quite a thought. Growing old together with your spouse. What is equally surprising is that the divorce statistics for those in the upper years of life and marriage( age 55+) are some of the highest! Perhaps these couples have been miserable for a long time and with good health and not many years left, they are deciding to cut their losses and run. Have another life before they have no life left. Who can really tell?

And yet it need not be so. Marriages need not decline with the years. Perhaps a good place to start in changing the climate of your marriage would be to read, “The Four Seasons Of Marriage” by Gary Chapman. The purpose of the book is to help you identify which season your marriage is in and to show you how to move away from the unsettledness of autumn or the coldness of winter toward the hopefulness of spring or the warmth and closeness of summer.

Friendships need not stagnate. Give you relationship the best possible care and attention even above the demands of children and work. “Grow Old Together” - Watch it on YouTube, as he walks out with Yoko Ono. And in the words of John Lennon, “God bless our love.”

Marriage Therapy

A husband and wife came for counseling after 15 years of marriage.
When asked what the problem was, the wife went into a passionate,
painful tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the 15
years they had been married. She went on and on and
on: neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved
and unlovable, an entire laundry list of un-met needs she had endured
over the course of their marriage.

Finally, after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of
time, the therapist got up, walked around the desk and, after asking
the wife to stand, embraced and kissed her passionately.

The woman shut up and quietly sat down as though in a daze. The
therapist turned to the husband and said, "This is what your wife
needs at least three times a week. Can you do this?"

The husband thought for a moment and replied,
"Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on
Fridays, I fish."

Father File: Photograph of My Father

Raymond Carver – the American short story writer and poet published a book in 1985 called “Fires”. It is a collection of essays and poems. Included in the book is a wonderful and moving essay called, “My Father’s Life” and a poem entitled, “Photograph Of My Father In His Twenty Second Year.” He says, “The poem was a way of trying to connect up with him” long after he had died.
Trying to connect with your father. For me there have been many connections with my own father. Many of them are memory connections made after his death. Sigmund Freud called the death of his father, “The most poignant loss of his life.” Sean Connery called it, “A shattering blow.” For me, it was not unexpected and I had been mentally preparing for it for some years, as I knew the day would eventually come. Neil Chethik, in his book, “Fatherloss. How Sons Of All Ages Come To Terms With The Deaths Of Their Dads”, says, “Each man seems to experience a significant reordering of his inner landscape.” The last ten years have been a reordering of my inner landscape since my father’s passing.
The other experience which has precipitated reflection has been that of becoming a dad. Raymond Carver said of his own life,”The biggest single influence on my writing, directly and indirectly, has been my two children. They were born before I was twenty and from beginning to end – some nineteen years in all – there wasn’t any area of my life where their heavy and often baleful influence didn’t reach.” There is no question about it. Children change your life and in ways you may not or could not have imagined. And not always as negatively as Carver experienced. But there were other pressures in his life at that time, specifically, not much money, cramped living space, both partners trying to work part-time and him trying to make it as a writer.
Fatherloss and Parenthood - defining experiences. Like Raymond Carver, I too have a photograph, a memory of my father, prompted by the news of how serious his illness was.

From A Photograph Of My Father As Young Man.

When they said,
Perhaps months or
A few weeks at the most,

I saw him again, as a young man
With a broad smile.
In love with life
And stepping out with friends
On O’Connell Street,
Coming from Lansdowne Road.

His open raincoat behaving with
Unruly exuberance
In the January wind.