Yesterday a message was repeated in my head more than I would have desired and it causes me to have great sadness for the welfare of “the common man”.
I found myself walking into Walmart which, for those of you who know me, happens very, very seldomly due to Walmart’s employment stance. But alas, I caved in and walked down the grungy aisles of Walmart, viewing the overpriced, cheap garbage that they were selling for that day and remembering the smile of the little old lady who stood at Walmart’s door as a greeter. Upon entering the check-out line, I held my bicycle helmet (seriously, dude, my old one was all broken) and patiently waited. The cashier spoke in an exhausted voice to the couple in front of me, “Hello, did you find everything you were looking for?” The “college age” man acknowledged the cashier’s existence and dismissed her question with a quick nodd. The “college age” woman continued placing items on the conveyer belt. As she rounded the shopping cart, two small blue-green eyes peered at me from a carseat securely propped up in the cart’s child seat.
I smiled at the little one as she studied my face. But no smile came in return. What I assumed to be her father, seeing that I was watching his baby, jumped around the cart into the baby’s view and smiled a huge smile at her. The baby’s response? Nothing. She looked away from him. Dissatisfied with the response from the child, the father lower his eyebrows, smirked, and walked off in annoyance.
At this point, “mom” had loaded the groceries, paid for them and begun to reload them into the cart. “Dad” muttered about the price of the expenses (all of which excluding a magazine were baby expenses) and dragged the cart off by the cart’s back end as the “family” proceeded out the door. One thing I noticed… no rings.
I stepped outside my apartment and headed for the car. I had forgotten something at the store and needed to pick it up before tomorrow. “Bummer, Monica…” I thought, “I really have to get my homework done.” I walked down the steps heading for the Little Green and her familiar balding roof as, “You should have remembered…” echoed through my head.
Two, what society would label as, “college men” stood on the sidewalk below my building conversing about something. I didn’t bother listening. You know, try not to eaves drop. But then a voice cut out through my thoughts, “Dude and she was like, ‘I have those same thoughts every time we have sex.’ ” My heart broke. I think I knew him from high school. One thing I knew… no rings.
A Mexican couple walked along the aisle of Meijer. The woman walked ahead with a cart-load of produce. The man walked behind, eyeing some brightly packaged cookie box in the center aisle. In his right arm, a chubby little beauty, smiling her gummy grin. “Dad proclaimed something in Spanish to “mom”. “Mom” walked off, choosing to ignore him. She rolled her eyes and grumbled as she passed me. No rings.
*** Warning: the following content may not be appropriate for all maturity levels in all audiences. But still needs to be addressed in EVERY household. ***
A teenage “couple” sat on a big blanket at the Fairborn Pool. All thirty-one of my Kindgarteners were securely enjoying themselves at the pool, but I noticed three little girls who were not swimming. The girls sat on their towels, partially wrapped to keep the wind from chilling their bones. They laughed and stared at the teenagers. The teenage girl flirtatiously spanked her boyfriend as he tackled her. “Where are their parents?” I thought as I turned my head away from the wrestling and rolling of the string-bikinied girl and the overly-excited guy.
“Girls,” I called to my Kindergarten audience, “Come get your snack.” Shield your eyes, I thought. And it really hurt my heart as I thought of the messages that they were receiving on a potentially harmlessly fun childhood fieldtrip.
The idea of Co-habitation rolled through my mind during “rest time” after the pool field-trip and later on in the night. How easily we, as a disinterested society, claim to know the best way to raise our children to be responsible adults; the very same children that we allow to raise themselves. Afterall, “co-habitation will allow them to experience the bond of marriage without the commitment”. And that’s a good thing? “It will help them become more comfortable with knowing how to live with someone else.” Do we really think they’re not having sex? Like, seriously? And do you know how many “Christian” people I know that think co-habiting is okay? Where did we get confused? Where did we go wrong?
I just think of all the broken families, all the broken hearts, all the hopeless, and useless feeling people who result from co-habiting. And we can pick one story that we think is a success from co-habiting, but give it ten years. Give it twenty years.
Perhaps the value of the rings have gone down in society’s mind. But why have psychiatrist and couseling visits increased? Why have divorce rates skyrocketed? Why is it now common to have more children in a classroom from divorced families than married ones? Why are teachers being trained to deal with children going through the battles of parental custody wars? Why do we have so many ADHA kids and children who are depressed? Why are there so many pregnant teens and pregnant college students who are fighting for child support from uninterested “fathers”? Why are there so many abortions? Why so much hurt from what we think is an “unneeded” tradition of exchanging vows and rings?
Dare we accept the challenge to live with someone for the rest of our lives? Through thick and thin? Yet running from commitment and careless living seems so much more satisfying… But only in the temporary. [Do we not see that from the past?]
I hope that churches will begin to make a bigger deal of marriages. Please, Body of Christ, stop overlooking the pain of divorce. Stop sweeping it under the rug. May our applause of fifty-year anniversaries NEVER stop. And may this society finally wake-up.
I mean… we all can dream of something, right?
As McDonald’s used to say in naive bewilderment, “It can happen.”
But again… the trump card declaires that “[The world has] no defense against our prayers.”
Stand up for the Truth.
