Christian Maturity

A review of reasons found to break up marriages, acknowledged the importance of even minor issues in the area of marriage and the family.  In practice many of the little irritations of life are made major leading to break-up of families.  A few of them were: 1) – is the tissue in the bathroom installed for the roll to be drawn from over the top of it, or under it; 2) – is the tooth paste tube to be rolled from the bottom toward the cap or pressed along the length of the tube; 3) – is the dish washing to be done today or tomorrow; 4) – are clothes to be stored after washing or left in the basket to be used when needed?  The list goes on and on to form evidence for pettiness that leads to divorce, broken families, devastated children, not in a drowning wave, but a drip, drip, drip that creates a mustiness from which the husband or the wife, or both, wishes to escape and for which one or both persons are willing to fritter away the most beautiful, even spiritual, relationship a man and woman can share together.  I have counseled many of these persons.  One fellow took afternoon naps and did not pull up the spread afterwards.  His wife was livid, and ultimately divorced him for this and others similar casual habits.  Grooming differences, literature preferences, speech habits, social involvements, and ad infinitum were cause to violate vows taken just months, perhaps years, earlier to take each other in sickness and in health, and all else until death do us part – unless (in a later added phrase) you refuse to hang up your bath towel.  The news commonly reports the abuses in marriage generated from some small infraction habits to the expectations of the mate.  (As I am writing this several wealthy athletes are in court and suspended from their teams for wife or child abuse – carrying their play violence to their families.)  The story is so repeated that it becomes major to the loss of society.  One person divorced the mate because that mate did not care about horses.  A daughter loved horses so much that she put them ahead of her parents to the top of her list.  Her parents divided on small matters, she turned to animals that would not talk back.  If the young lady did marry from the time of that exchange more than thirty years ago, I wonder how her marriage developed.  We are building a culture that weakens our ability to solve problems gracioustly, so in the living process weakens our resolve.  Some of these same persons are disturbed at the politicians who refuse to find solutions to accommodate differences in society.  The other fellow is stupid, lazy, unfeeling, selfish, and the offended persons contends.  The guy sucks his teeth after he eats, and she rolls her eyes when I talk to her.  What might be turned into humorous incidents in daily life become tension, fierce language, added to other idiosyncrasies, are permitted to crush relationships.  Patience, appeal, understanding, communication, flexibility, concern for others and reflection solve problems. Crushing the better side of our natures makes hypocrites of us in our pledges.

Radio programming succeeded by television programs, has often turned the simple conflicts of family life into humorous episodes.  In the early years of television Jackie Gleason, a popular actor/comedian, led a popular weekly program in which he and his wife, and sometimes his neighbor, got into some tension over a minor matter.  Gleason almost always recognized the shallowness of his thinking, the yelling subsided, and he retreated to admit his love, kissed his wife – and the program closed.  The same thing happened with Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Desi Arnaz, who played out the scenes from folly to real life, especially humorous in her references to his Spanish accents for English speech.  What they solved in their very popular television programming they could not solve in their real marriage.  What they could do on their humorous program they could not do in their real lives.  They divorced, barely able to speak to each other, and giving their biological baby they introduced so tenderly on their program a divided experience in real life.

God is a respecter of children, offers empathy and concern for them, is interested in their nurture and the development of all they can be physically, mentally, socially and spiritually.  The test of success is in their maturity.  Maturity is, in human spirituality perceived as developing competence in management of the physical/mental/social/spiritual context of the individual relating to problem solving in love for self and relationships.  Both the person and God become gratified in that commitment.