Category / Family

by Michael

Interview with Lee Butler, Author of Listen My Son

I am a father.  And since the boy came in March–since we found out we were expecting, really–I’ve been looking for good information to strengthen myself as a parent.  I found one such resource in Listen My Son: Wisdom to Help African American Fathers by Lee H. Butler, Jr.  Dr. Butler is a professor of theology and psychology and director of the Center for the Study of Black Faith and Life at the Chicago Theological Seminary. 

I asked Dr. Butler to consider being interviewed for the blog shortly after reading Listen My Son.  I’m pleased to have him answers on the blog.  I hesitate slightly to say so, but this book isn’t just for African Americans or just for men even if the content springs from the work of African American men.  I asked the professor about that, too.  I hope you’re interested enough to search out this resource for your own knowledge and appreciation. 

Questions

1) You and the other contributors are open about personal experiences as sons and as fathers.  What motivated you to write Listen, My Son?

Listen, My Son has been written by special invitation by the publisher, Abingdon Press, the publisher of the United Methodist Church.  I was intrigued by the invitation and motivated to write because African American manhood is an identity in transition.  I wanted to be able to make a contribution by encouraging a much needed discussion that will help us to develop a more positive self-understanding as Black men in America.

2) You worked with three colleagues on this work.  What was the writing process like, and how did you determine what you’d write and what the other contributors would offer?

The project design was mine.  Just as no one person can be all things to all people, I was clear I didn’t have the life experience to write about all topics.  Because I wanted this book to be readable and not a research project, I invited a few friends to join me in the project.  I developed the chapter outline, then I asked the others to write specific chapters that matched their lived experiences, which of course differed from my own.

3) Your contrast of sirehood and fatherhood is compelling and powerful.  Can you summarize the difference between these two marks of manhood and say a word or two about how men can “resist the selfish, immature legacy of sirehood”?

Responsibility and a commitment to relationship are what separate fatherhood and sirehood.  A father is not only one who takes responsibility for his actions, he takes responsibility to care for, provide for, nurture, and protect his children.  This deep sense of responsibility is guided by his commitment to being present and fully participate in every aspect of his children’s lives.  Many men understand responsibility to mean that we work hard to be good providers; but responsibility that is guided by relationship means that we work hard to give of ourselves those things that we have worked hard to provide.  It is our presence, participation, and active giving that makes all the difference in the world.  Fatherhood promotes responsibility and relationship.  Sirehood, on the other hand, is quite selfish and is only concerned about being served.  It is always focused on what the man desires to be given and his own personal satisfaction in being able to say he has children, even if he never does a thing for those children.  Resistance is an important concept for African American men.  We have come to believe that being the sire, “the king in his castle” is how we are to see ourselves.  The most noble of kings, however, is concerned about the well-being of all the people, not about what he can get by exploiting the people.  We have been exploited for so many generations, we must resist the temptation to do to others what has been done to us.  Our children are not to be our servants, they are to live as our sons and daughters who are most loved by us.

4) Parenting is full of surprises, surprises that are hard to prepare for.  How do you talk about mentoring and its impact in parenting?  And where can men find mentors as we seek to become better fathers?

Now there’s a question for everyday!  Each and everyday brings something new.  Children are constantly growing, changing, becoming new right before our eyes.  In this age of information and technology, we are everyday surprised by what our children are exposed to that we must become more aware of.  What I encourage men to see in the book is that none of us can go through life alone.  Mentoring is a good way of understanding that we all need support and must give support.  A mentoring relationship–and relationship is what is emphasized throughout the book–is a learning as we grow relationship.  There is a natural give-and-take that exists in mentoring relationship that allows both persons to give and receive gifts of life.  It is the ability to tell and listen to the stories of life’s ups and downs.  Also, finding mentors requires an openness to believe that another as a good word about life to share.  Becoming a good father means that a man is willing to sit down to tell and listen to stories that speak about the everyday up and down experiences of life.

5) Can you discuss an African American father’s impact upon his daughter’s life, what his role is, and how it is different from raising a son?

Before answering these question directly, I feel it very important to first say that we live in a male-preferred society that encourages men to see our value as men by fathering sons.  So strong is this feeling that many men feel disappointment at the birth of a daughter.  This feeling must be addressed and transformed before any of us can be true fathers to our daughters.  It is the father-daughter relationship that will help the daughter to know she is too important to be abused.  If that relationship is strong and truly loving, when she grows into full womanhood, she will not tolerate anyone treating her with less respect and dignity than her father treated her.  As a result, a father’s role in the life of his daughter is to nurture her to be strong and interdependent so she will know how to stand alone as well as stand in mutual respect and partnership with another.  Raising a son means we must teach him how to respect a girl/woman as another man’s daughter.

6) What would you like readers who are not fathers or who are not African American to take away from Listen, My Son?

To the readers who are not fathers, I have taken the attitude in the book to speak of the importance of every man to adopt a fathering attitude for himself as he relates to every child, to take a mentoring attitude as he relates to every other man.  We all, whether fathers or not, have a responsibility to the larger community.  This means we are mentors and guides for all for the maintenance of community life.  This is no less true for those who are not African American.  On the whole, the book helps men to understand more fully who we are, and it offers insights for women to know why we might think and act as we do. Continue reading →

by Michael

Making Teeth Appear

I read on one of those parenting websites a quote that goes in different places for me.  “You can do nothing to make new teeth appear.” 

You’ve probably read somewhere on the blog that I have a little one.  He’s my noisemaker, my sleep-taker.  He’s cute.  He has to be.  That’s the way God gets us, right?  Giving us cute kids who drive our ears to ringing.  But I digress.  I’ve seen little white buds in his mouth for weeks.  At least I think I’ve seen them.  I’m known to make things up given my proclivity to fiction, so who knows what’s really been there and for how long.  Let’s just say I’ve seen white buds. 

He’s drooled, and long stretches of baby spit have worn me like a bracelet or chain or wedding band on most mornings.  I leave the house, stand up to preach, go to the grocery store with the boy’s slob spots dotting my shoulders.  I’m used to it.  Which is a whole different blog post. 

He is  not teething if teething means doing something that he hasn’t been doing since forever.  I think he started drooling in his fourth week, which means if he is teething, it’s a long process.  Here is a summary of what waiting for his teeth is connecting me to these days, and it’s really not about teeth:

1) Things happen before you know it.  No really.  They do.  This kid’s teeth started forming in his mother’s womb.  Buds formed in his gums.  I don’t know when they’ll cut or break the skin, but the teeth were present even when I couldn’t see them.

2) There are things in the world that I can’t do.  This is not breaking news but it is a good reminder.  I can no more control my life and all that comes with it than I can make my son’s smile form.  His mouth is a hole, one that gurgles and sings, but I can’t pull those baby teeth from those white buds.

3) Waiting is waiting.  I wait well on some things.  Like the boy’s teeth.  I’m good with his teeth taking their time.  I’m in no rush for him to bite me, for me to stop him from biting me (which means me biting him back as long as it takes for him to get the picture).  So I can wait on him.  For those things that I want right now, there’s the season of teething, the span of time from “in your mother’s womb” til “cutting the skin.” 

4) In between the times, the boy will swallow without chewing.  God has formed his little body to do precisely that.  He swallows everything from oatmeal cereal and sweet potatoes to squash and formula.  He’s made to get through this stage.  The natural course of things being what it is, his teeth will come.  Whenever.

5) Everything feels different with teeth.  Having had teeth for a while, I know that soon my finger will feel differently in the boy’s mouth.  In fact, everything feels new with teeth.  We’ll be more cautious.  He’ll learn new skills.  But things will change.

by Michael

Jokes & Notes

I’m ashamed to say that it took us four months to go out on our second date since the boy’s birth.  The first one didn’t really count because it was our anniversary, a month after Bryce moved in.  It is was my mom who kept the baby.  Which also doesn’t count for all the sneaky fears which dance around in the head while you’re sipping soup or cutting meat.  Still, for the last few weeks we had been talking about going out.  Yes, we’re finding that a date starts weeks in advance! 

The plan for was Friday.  But Thursday night a friend’s plans changed so instead of taking Dawn out on Friday, we went out Thursday.  It was extremely good timing, given our last few weeks with grief and stress and the normal bouncing and dropping which come with our lives. 

There was not much time to plan.  Dawn wanted to laugh.  I had been looking into comedy clubs for the next day.  So, we traisped over to a neighborhood restaurant and then to Bronzeville’s Jokes & Notes.  Three reflections from the night.

  1. Friends are priceless.  If you have them, they do all types of kind things for you, including watching or quieting or rocking your kid, even when your kid is supposed to be asleep.  This boy goes down for four solid hours nightly.  By 7:30.  He’s out.  He complains when and if we make him stay up longer.  But on date night does he follow his routine?  Of course not, so we’re at Park 52 texting.  I’m looking at Dawn, glancing the menu, and trying to convince the wife that that last text has expired.  The one about him screaming 20 minutes after we left has now lapsed and is no longer relevant.  The one about our friend wondering if the neighbors will call Chicago’s finest–ignore that too.  Illia was so even about it.  She calmly did what would have made me crazy a couple months ago, before I learned how nutty a new dad’s life can be.  She handled the boy softly.  Played his favorite song.  Rocked and whispered to him.  A friend does this.  And when you come home, she’s still your friend.  They offer to do the same thing again and mean it.  How can you price that?
  2. Laughter is good for you.  Visiting a comedy club is one of the best ways to restart dating after you’ve not taken your wife out because of a new non-paying tenant, also known as your first child.  Now, me and Dawn talk.  We talk about each other.  We probably talk about you.  But at a comedy club you don’t have to talk.  Particularly when you’ve committed to not being one of those couples who only talk about the kid–even though everything this soon is always about the kid.  That’s another post.  So you get to hear other people talk.  Like going to a movie but getting so much more out of the show.  You hear comics who are starting and comics who are seasoned.  You get to see normal people up and out at night, late at night.  You wonder if this is how life is now for some people, and it’s so close to your home.  You’re refreshed at the idea that you could have been home with a screaming boy and not known about all those laughs and hysterics.
  3. I love going places where no one knows me.  Especially clubs.  I know this may sound wierd since I’m a preacher.  I know that some of my preaching relatives may raise an eyebrow to this.  But there is something refreshing about being in a different place, with no responsibility, to be entertained.  Jokes & Notes was dark.  We saw no one we knew, which is a small accomplishment in the neighborhood.  Frankly, most of the people I know would have loved to see us out.  One or two would have dressed their faces with that glance of concern, that long question that asks, “Why are you out don’t you have a baby and should I call the people on you now or wait until you get up to go to the restroom?” 

That night I was subject to looking at the concerned face, had I saw it, hiding my phone and ordering them a mai tai or a “what dat do” to calm their fears.

by Michael

I Don’t Know What to Title This Post

I imagine that looking down my “Previous Addresses” feels like a rattling roller coaster.  I write about ordination, dreams, a friend’s music, writing and, now, death.  I hope you hang in with me as I blather about what may seem like scattered things.

So the last post was on dreams; this one, death. 

My wife’s cousin (which makes him my cousin in law) died.  I don’t know when he died.  That bothers me because I love to know things.  I love to know details like times and dates.  There’s cruelty in not knowing when Christopher died.  We know when he was born.  We know that he too recently graduated and started studying at Columbia College downtown.  We know he was an artist and a merciful friend.  We know he drowned.  We don’t know when.

Christopher died and probably more days ago than are bearable to think of.  He died after enjoying an evening with friends, after jumping in Lake Michigan with those friends to swim, and after helping save the life of one of those friends.  His body was recovered after what felt like countless days.  He was identified.  My heart lurched when I asked Dawn if her aunt and uncle had to identify the body.  There is something unnatural about a parent burying a child.  Absolutely.  But even that sounds to my mind like a bit less tramatic–and no these traumas can’t be compared–than identifying your child’s body after it’s been submerged all those days.

We funeralized and memorialized Christopher in two gatherings, one Saturday mostly for family and a few friends, the other Sunday afternoon where friends and fellow artists packed into the tiny Bond Chapel on the U of C’s campus.  In both places words were spoken over this man’s memory.  The priest, the friend, the relative–all of us thought of this young man’s life.  It was short, but it was full.  Even with its fullness, the grief of seeing his life end makes me feel robbed.  Robbed of his smile.  Robbed of the nod in his head as we passed on 53rd Street.  Robbed of his concern and question, “How’s Dawn and the baby?” 

The one way I’m making sense of this is by thinking about hope beyond the grave, whether that grave is a temporary crack under a large lake or a “permanent” resting place like the plots in Oakwoods or Mt. Hope or Lincoln.  I’m thinking about what Christian theologians call the Christian hope.  It’s the hope that speaks to the day and days when all our griefs are remedied by God’s good finish to this part of life. 

It’s a fantastic claim that the Christian scriptures make: God will make all things new.  Ponder that, even if you don’t believe it.  Ponder, if you will, God making new. 

Believing that we have a hope is a kind of dream.  It’s elusive.  It can be captured and it can’t.  Sure, it’s a belief, a matter of faith.  I come to these beliefs daily and not just when death gets this close or closer.  I make these claims and press them upon people as a matter of vocation.  And like pastors before me, it seems so much easier to speak about hope than, at times, to have it.  I’m grateful for those splendid minutes when long hope and faith and belief feel much stronger than pain, anguish, and sorrow.  It stands far off sometimes, but hope comes closer, at least eventually, after pain.

If there is something to be said when death comes and opens its large hand to take or escort or snatch or accompany a loved one, it is that death is much less powerful than the hope we have.  Of course, it’s a hope in Christ.  Nothing else.  Just him.  For some, that’s literally unbelievable.  For others of us, it’s simply what we have.

by Michael

Switching Formula

When the boy was dropping in percentiles a while back, the good doctors added formula to his diet.  It was a small grief, especially for the wife.  I still can’t understand what the doctor said about the relationships between milk production, the baby’s needs, and the baby’s hunger.  I was in a cloud when the variables of stress and life came into the picture.  Who knew that producing milk didn’t just happen no matter what happened around you and to you.  Nonetheless, that was Dawn’s part of the story.

Formula.  First of all, did you know that just about every formula on the market is only good for an hour, if the kid has started to drink?  Yes, you can mix it and refrigerate it for 24 hours, but if the baby sucks once, you’re on an hour clock.  I really want somebody smart to create a formula that a father can give to a kid after an hour.  Why in the world would all these scientists and dieticians and pediatricians not have a powdery recipe that can keep for longer than an hour?  Beyond me. 

Anyhow, since then, we switched his formula to something else, only to switch it back to the original formula.  We got upset and nervous, like most first-timers.  I was in the aisle at Babies R Us reading the little white chart, comparing vitamin D and vitamin A levels between three types of food.  Dawn was searching online.  We read comments on BabyCenter.  We scanned the cheat sheets we get from the doctor.  We rehearsed what the doctor said the one time we brought up switching formula, even though we never brought up switching back and whether it would hurt the little guy’s stomach.  Nothing went wrong.

It’s so easy to caught into a whirlwind of worry.  Here is this little person.  He’s cute.  He’s noisy sometimes.  But he relies on you for food.  Think of that.  He cannot eat unless we feed him.

And what he eats matters.  It influences so many deep things that I can’t understand.  Sure, I get that he has to gain weight.  But if he doesn’t get enough vitamin whatever, who knows what happens.

It’s interesting that as parents–and yes, early on in the boy’s life–we’re hyper concerned and sensitive.  But I wonder when we’ll stop caring.  I wonder when we’ll be less concerned and when that less concern will eventuate into “Oh, he’ll ate whatever.”  I wonder when I’ll become that parent who gives their kid the wrong thing–and there are wrong things–because it’s okay and because he’ll be fine and because I grew up eating it and because every other kid eats it and because that’s what was available and you get the picture.  I’m sure it’ll come as soon as is practical, but there’s something splendid about being so concerned to get things right.  There’s something so precise and special and freeing about looking at labels and being guided to giving the boy the good or right or, at least, recommended food.

by Michael

The Night I Ignored My Son

A few months ago, I took up the task of reading about Sleep Habits.  Dawn’s middle was growing, and since I wasn’t stretching as fas as she, I decided to add this to my To-Do list.  This was right before the boy came.  When all I heard was that my life was over.  EJ told me to “Sleep now.  Get off the phone and go to bed right now.”  When everyone who knew me offered me the truth that I’d never sleep again.  People can be so cruel.  Even when right.

Well, a friend recommended the book.  In fact, several did.  And we have been digesting small pieces of the chapters.  I’m highlighting and quoting and telling my mother what the book says without saying I’m quoting a book because my mother will look at me like I’m still a bookworm and that she loves me for it.  But it’s been a small refuge to go to those pages, to learn that our kid isn’t as crazy as I’ve called him, to learn that mood impairment is to be expected–his and ours, and to be reminded that babies grow.  That they sleep.

As the kid grows older–and he’s only five months–I get to see him taking these little steps toward real sleep which have been outlined by smart people.  I see that he fits into the pattern, that his sleep needs are like other babies. 

The other night we tossed a milestone.  It started as an experiment.  It’s strange how the tiniest things become big deals when your body has almost adjusted to sleep deprivation.  I told Dawn that I was going to ignore the boy’s nighttime cry, to see what would happen.  We had been talking about doing this for more than a month, every since month three, but that day I got the guts. 

We sat there, like those other parents in the book, and Bryce started his call.  I could tell he was confused when he didn’t see me.  He cranked up, edging his tone up an octave.  He has a singer’s lungs, you see.  And he sang that night.  We sat together not moving.  It was easier for me than for my wife.  I’m used to ignoring people.  I’ve cultivated the ability to turn my attention to other things.  Incidentally, this was before I’d read Weissbluth’s section of 4-8 months where he says, “If you do not check on your baby, he will eventually fall asleep.”  Actually I read it three months ago, trying to read ahead, and forgot.  But I’m ahead of myself. 

We sat.  Bryce sang.  We waited.  The boy yelled. 

I said something about needing a sign for our door.  I was aware of our neighbors.  One young man had the gall to come to our door three weeks ago at 11:30PM.  “I heard the baby crying,” he said.  “Is everything okay?”  I didn’t recognize this man.  And I’m not used to people coming to my door at all, much less at 11:30 at night.  So, in response, I stood there for four seconds.  My kid blared a few feet away.  I wanted him to hear a baby.  I wanted him to think that a baby was in my house.  That babies cry.  I said, in the slowest possible manner, “We’re fine.”  And I closed the door on his confused face.  I was so proud that I didn’t deal more harshly with him.  Anyway, back to the milestone.  Bryce was crying, we were doing nothing, and after 13 minutes or so, he stopped.  Stopped like shut up.  Stopped like is he breathing.  Stopped like silence.  Went to sleep. 

In that moment–and I have to note them when they come–I figured that this parenting thing may be doable.  That I may just get out of it alive.  That was the first night where I felt good ignoring the boy.  Before that, even with my easy ability to close my ears without the earplugs I got for Father’s Day, I felt a twinge, a hint, a glimmer of guilt.  Not anymore.

by Michael

Better Decision, pt. 3 of 4

The third post toward making better, stronger decisions is here.  Without pause, my third nudge has to do with feelings.

Feel the consequences before you choose them. 

It’s extremely helpful to pay attention to your gut, to the seat of your emotions.  Some people resonate with the language of the heart.  So, whether you call it your gut, your heart, or your feelings, the idea is that you connect with them. 

How does it feel for you to get option A?  Does option B make your stomach turn?  This part of choosing isn’t on the analytical side.  It’s framed by the analytical side and might be inseparable from it, but it moves downward.  Maybe the decision is completely out of your head and down in your feet.

I realize that this is almost entirely hypothetical.  It may be next to impossible.  But you may be surprised.  If you dig or sit down long enough, maybe your feelings will expose themselves.  Would choosing one way make you feel worse or better?  Can those feelings be a part of the tools that help you make a better, wiser decision? 

I’ve noticed that my feelings sit in my stomach.  When I’m stressed or angry or agitated, my stomach lets me know.  I may lose my appetite.  I may increase my appetite.  I may eat and not notice taste.  I may feel flipping and hear rumbling more than normal.  I may feel what my acupuncturist calls heat when my energy gets confused and doesn’t know how to fall down and, instead, moves upward.  But my stomach speaks and my job is to feel and to listen.

Maybe that is feeling the first response you had when you considered your options.  The nagging feeling that sunk your spirit.  The headache flashing when you spent five minutes writing pros and cons.  Joy rising up as you talked to a friend about some goal you set.  Exhaustion coming from nowhere other than looking at that one route you could take.  Excitement when you heard about a particular alternative that you hadn’t thought of.

My spiritual director told me once that our series of conversations was about feeling more and not less.  Think about that.  If you saw your life as an opportunity to feel more, not less.  If you saw your decisions as opportunities to feel more and not less.  Maybe they would help you choose or refrain from choosing.  Maybe you would recognize feelings as a gift and not as irritants.  Maybe they could be tools and keys and tiny maps for you as you considered the choices before you. 

So, if you were to feel your decisions; if you were to experience some part of the consequences to your decisions; if you were to let yourself sense or hear what would happen, how might that enable you to choose?

by Michael

More on Marriage: Interview with Johnathan & Toni Alvarado, authors of Let’s Stay Together

In my last post, I reflected upon my role as pastor in relation to marriage and divorce.  In some ways, I’m continuing that reflection with what I offer you in this post.

I read Let’s Stay Together this year.  It’s by two of my mentors, Bishop Johnathan Alvarado and his wife and colleague, Dr. Toni Alvarado.  I asked them a few questions about their book, which I commend to you if you’re interested in marriage, interested in getting married, or serious about strengthening yourself in relation to a long-term committed relationship.  As I’ve told them, I am thankful for their willingness to teach others about marriage, to mentor me and my wife in our marriage, as well as their hard work in living what they say.  I’m realistic but I hold them to a high bar, which they, by grace, reach gracefully.

1)      What motivated you to write Let’s Stay Together?

We have been concerned with the rising divorce rate within the body of Christ.  We noticed that divorces were not remanded to the ranks of the laity exclusively but even amongst the clergy and leaders within the body of Christ divorce seems to be recurring and even acceptable.  Let’s Stay Together is an attempt to stop the hemorrhage and provide strategies and solutions for longevity and success in marriage. Further, we carry a burden to prepare singles who are desirous of marriage for healthy and productive relationships.

 2)      Your commitment to marriage shines in this book.  At the same time, you counsel couples and you see the hardships people face when trying to live out their marital vows in our society.  How do you maintain your conviction that “divorce was not an option” when that option is so accessible?

We maintain that conviction because we believe that the biblical mandate for marriage carries with it the ability to fulfill its requisites.  Second, we understand that strong marriages are the building blocks for a society.  Not only do we purport that it is a Christian mandate but also it is a necessary institution for the continuance of any civil society.  Finally, the divorced persons with whom we have spoken and/or counseled have consistently confirmed our suspicions that divorce is not all that it’s cracked up to be!  There are those who after having read our book have testified that if they had only known to apply some of the skills that we enumerate, they would have never divorced in the first place. 

 3)      In what ways can a couple mature their beliefs about the long-term covenant of marriage before getting married?

We are strong advocates for pre-marital counseling.  In our contemporary culture, people do more to get a “drivers license” than they do to get a “marriage license.”  In our premarital counseling, not only do couples learn skills that give them the opportunity to have a good marriage but they also get first hand exposure to what a healthy marriage could look like.  The combination of information and impartation gives premarital couples a foundation for marital success.

 4)      You are leaders.  Are their any specific ways leaders are vulnerable to marital failure?

Yes.  Public leaders are particularly vulnerable to marital failure precisely because of the public nature of the lives that they lead.  The pressure of genuinely trying to be a healthy example to others adds a dimension to the marital relationship that must be managed with skill and prudence.  Most couples do not divorce because of a lack of love, but rather they divorce because they lack the skills necessary to stay married, especially while living in the public eye.  We address this in the chapter of the book entitled: “Mega business, career, and ministry requires a mega-marriage.”

5)      One reason I wanted to interview you was to ask you this question.  How have divorces by significant leaders (e.g., Al and Tipper Gore) and celebrity figures in our country informed and challenged how readers hear your relationship strategies?  Does the ease with which many people approach marital dissolution, or not being married for that matter, change how you engage with couples who desire healthy marriages?

We live in an age where the media no longer reflects the common life of the people but rather it frames and crafts the lives that we live.  The media moguls are both predictive and determinative as to how we will live.  Because of this, public figures have more influence on public life than they realize.  When public figures and “leaders” within our society dismiss their marriages without so much as a tear it tacitly gives others the permission or even the encouragement to do the same.  It does change the way in which we have to counsel and instruct intended couples and married couples.  We have to teach them to be counter-cultural if they are going to be successful in their marriages.  

 6)      This is a book about marriage, but a lot of people aren’t married.  And might not get married.  Is there something in this book for them, and if so, what might they find?

While this book is specifically couched in the context of marriage, it is principally a book of relationship strategies.  In the book, we teach strategies that can be beneficial to any relationship.  In any relationship two people have to be able to communicate effectively so we teach principles of good communication.  In every relationship some conflict will arise therefore we teach principles of negotiation for positive resolution.  We believe that this book has something for everyone, not just married couples.  As a matter of fact, our singles are purchasing and enjoying reading the book at least as much as our married and intended couples!

 7)      What are one or two things you want readers to takeaway from Let’s Stay Together?

Here they are: 

  • We want our readers to take away the passion that we have for being married.  We endeavor, through our candid examples and transparent anecdotes to be as forthcoming and genuine as possible while simultaneously painting a realistic picture of the work involved in having a good marriage.  We believe that marriage is viable, beneficial, and worth the effort it takes to enjoy life together. 

 

  • For our readers who may be unmarried, we desire to inspire, encourage, and to demonstrate to them that in spite of all of the negativity that is so aggrandized, marriage still works.  The skills that we teach will enhance their lives and every relationship that they may have. 

 

  • Finally, we want every reader to take away the knowledge and tools to build a strong, vibrant, and successful marriage.  It is our hope that everyone who reads this work will discover the blessings of life together, just as we have. 

8)     How can readers of this blog learn about your book and the other dozen things you do?

The book can be purcashed on our website.  Of course they can find us on our blog and at the following links:
www.totalgrace.org
www.mskfoundation.org
www.beulah.org

by Michael

Til Death Do Us Part

Our church staff engaged in a round of emailed conversation a few weeks ago when one of us forwarded a question this brother raised.  Another coworker asked if anyone knew the questioner.  I chimed in that I did, that I served as his premarital counselor, in fact.  I could already tell that this was going somewhere: I was about to be somebody’s punchline. 

Indeed, our lead pastor replied that something was amiss with the couples I had been working with.  A few weeks prior, he informed me of my “first divorce,” the first time a couple whose marriage I officiated ended in divorce.  Of course, that conversation was serious.  In this emailed case, he was suggesting that my track record was not good.  He was being playful.

But it stung.  It still stings.

Any pastor paying attention to his congregation takes notice when a couple is in trouble.  If the pastor doesn’t, he or she should look to another type of work.  Leaders care when marriages experience trouble or falter.  Some of our best work is done in crisis.  I know we have limits, but there’s much room for grace when trouble fills a person’s life.

Nonetheless, my own small record, if I can call it that, has me thinking hard about my role in people’s lives and about the community’s role in helping sustain relationships when possible.  It’s not always possible, I know.  But I’m thinking that I shouldn’t lead people in taking vows when and if I cannot be in the immediate community who will help that couple live those big words.  That’s the idea behind the ceremony being led by a pastor, in a church, after all.

Leading a couple in vow-taking is a joy and a responsibility.  It’s fun to see a pair in love, standing before me with nothing but bliss in front of them, to look at them and to know some–again, some–of the things that will work against that bliss.  It’s a responsibility I enjoy, living with them, side by side in the faith community, as they push their feet to keep up to those uttered promises. 

In my congregation, a lot of people get married and leave.  They graduate from school and go off to some place else.  It’s a part of our mission to do with those good folks what we can, but we know that many of them will leave.  In some cases that means “marrying them off” and watching them go to (hopefully) other communities of faith where they will be supported.  But my first divorce has me considering how to approach my pastoral responsibility.  

It’s why I don’t officiate just anybody’s wedding in the first place.  I’m not a service provider.  I’m selective.  Because I’m a pastor.  But this sting is bothering me.  It has me thinking about what I’ll say to the next pair who sends an email looking for an officiating minister–and I’m always thinking about this.

Not everybody’s married, but we all know that relative divorce, don’t we?  You know a friend or a person you trust or a person you believed with all your heart would maintain a successful, enduring marriage.  You have an example or two, an up close one, that makes you wonder about marriage and divorce, that makes you ask questions about things you once assumed.

So I ask you: Has divorce made you do something differently, made you see something differently?  What can you share?

by Michael

Why You Shouldn’t Work From Home

I tried to work from home on a Tuesday one week after my wife returned to work from maternity.  I set myself up to work on a sermon, to connect regarding a building project, to reply to multiple emails, and to have a conference call.  I was only to be home until early afternoon.  One of the grandmothers was to come. 

It was my personal disaster.  I got little finished.  I felt frustrated by unmet expectations and a growing ignorance for what life would really be like with a newborn.

By the time maternal grandmother knocked on the door, I really only accomplished the call and replying to emails–all between screaming sessions provided by my strong-lunged son.  I left home, rushed in head to get to the office or to the LBP or to any other place where I could do non-domestic things.  I was at work for the next six hours, partly getting things done and partly regaining something left in the open-mouthed screams of my kid.

Equilibrium.  I learned about that word in seminary.  Every person, every family, every couple develops an equilibrium and tries to stick at it.  Equilibrium has to do with being consistent despite change.  We maintain ourselves and our relationships even though things change around us and in us.  We maintain equilibrium, the result of something inside us.

Balance is the vehicle that maintains equilibrium.  If you are centered, you got there through balance.  If you’re off, well, you get it.

Upon first thought, I’d say that balance is a dance I’m good at.  But I often confuse balance with the ability to do multiple things at once.  That’s not balance.  Balance sits in the background, or it rests underneath our busy legs and hands.  Balance is at the center, sticking around with its cousin equilibrium.  Balance is the unmoving anchor inside us.  It enables you to keep your wits.  Being balanced keeps your emotions from overtaking you or your intellect from ushering your heart out of the house. 

I think one of the essential tools to using balance to maintain equilibrium is concentration.  The ability to keep paying attention to the same thing.  The skill of giving yourself to something despite the other somethings around you.  When you can concentrate or focus on something, you can acheive equilibrium.  Balance is easier.  But the opposite is true when you can’t concentrate.  You grasp at things you can’t catch.  You feel split.  You see things as disconnected rather than connected. 

This is why I can’t work from home.  And if you can’t maintain focus, if you can’t concentrate while being at home, you shouldn’t work from home either.  You should work where you can thrive.  You should work in a space where what you need for the work you do is present.  If you need silence, working on a busy city street corner leads to unproductivity.  If you require people, don’t go to the unpopulated trees of the Dan Ryan woods.  If you need visual stimuli, why go to a dark room?  If you need less activity on the eyes, why toil in an art gallery?

Questions for you: Describe your work space, what is it like?  What keeps you balanced?

by Michael

Okay, It’s Your Turn

 My mother made me eat the chicken leg until I was too far into my teen years.  My sister always got the breast; my brother the wings.  Mama ate the thighs and maybe a leg.  I had a leg.  I wasn’t malnourished, but as good as my Mama’s chicken was, I didn’t like it until I ate the wing or the breast.

In addition to my mother’s unspoken rule about chicken parts, she also restricted me to cheeseburgers when we went to McDonalds.  I remember going to Evergreen Plaza with her and having that yellow wrapping paper.  The crunch of the paper left me hopeless.  Even dissolved.  I thought I’d never get a bigger burger. 

My dad, on the other hand, handled matters differently.  Dad would take me and my brother to McDonald’s, and everytime I’d brighten up.  Turning that corner on 76th street near John Harvard where I hated second grade because it wasn’t first grade, McDonald’s was a treat with my dad.  We’d come back from Foster Park where we played on the see-saw, did nothing in the sand, or swung or sat or talked about nothing I can recall.  Fred-n-Jacks was next to McDonald’s.  It was across from Pleasant Grove MB Church, where I went once to hear somebody sing.  This McDonald’s was special.  My dad let me eat, encouraged me to eat, whatever I wanted. 

I wasn’t confident at eight that I could finish a Big Mac, so I’d go for the Quarter Pounder with cheese.  My sister called it the Quarter cheese.  So was showing off when she said this because she was old enough to work and we weren’t.  So what she had a brief stint at a McDonald’s. 

My brother and dad with their Big Macs.  Me with my quarter cheese.  Mama, somewhere else.  It was seven, eight, and nine year old bliss.

This is one memory of my early life.  It’s a day I spent with my father, Mardell and my brother, Mark.  Will you share one memory in bite-size form, a story or event you shared with a person who cared for you, father or not?

by Michael

Things to Do

Here are a few upcoming events you may be interested in:

  • Lake Meadows Art Show is this weekend.  This art fair is Saturday and Sunday.  Several tributes are planned, including honors for the inimitable Dr. Timuel Black.

 

  • Real Men Cook is Sunday afternoon, from 3-6pm at Kennedy King College.  The community celebration brings people together around men volunteering, cooking, and serving.

 

  • Men’s Conference at Third Baptist Church.  The conference is on Saturday, June 26, begins at 8:30AM, goes to 2PM, and will feature Dr. Lee Butler, author of Listen, My Son.  Dr. Butler will be interviewed on the blog in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

 

  • Festival of Life is coming back to Washington Park.  This festival, running July 2-5, is full of fun, music, and art every year, and you can expect a performance from Sade this time around.