‘Twas October 18 and Congress was a twitter. Senators and Representatives fought and they flittered. Some thought society must provide for the children. Others maintained only parents need be responsible for their wards. Congressional Democrats discussed and debated. For them Health Care for the little ones, that was the issue. When suddenly they realized this pursuit was not viable. A few thought if they built a coalition, designed a compromise all would be well. Thus, a proposal was submitted. Funds for the children in the form of Abstinence Education, surely, that would fly; health insurance went bye-bye.

As Congress deliberated and did few deeds, parents congregated and presumed a great need. In the corners of Portland, Maine parents chattered and prattled. Could we, should we, would we give our Middle School students a prescription. Might contraceptives and condoms cure societal ills? For these fine citizens sex was the subject. Who might the teacher be?
These anecdotes are as one. Elders inquire; who or how might we care for the little ones. What is right and what is wrong; what is neither, just misunderstood. In the House chambers, on the Senate floor, in living rooms near and far anxious adults ponder the possibilities their parents did not. Is sex a subject to be taught by the states, or once the babies arrive at school, is it too late. Continue reading

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From The Zahir by Paulo Coelho

I went to a train station today (in Paris, France) and learned that the distance between railway tracks is always 143.5 centimetres or 4 feet 8 ½ inches. Why this absurd measurement? When they built the first train carriages, they used the same tools as they had for building horse drawn carriages. And why that distance between the wheels on carriages? Because that was the width of the old roads along which the carriages had to travel. And who decided that roads should be that width? Well, suddenly, we are plunged back into the distant past. It was the Romans, the first great road-builders, who decided to make their roads that width. And why? Because their war chariots were pulled by two horses, and when placed side by side, the horses they used at the time took up 143.5 centimetres.

So the distance between the tracks I saw today, used by our state-of-the-art high-speed trains, was determined by the Romans. When people went to the United States and started building railways there, it didn’t occur to them to change the width and so it stayed as it was. This even affected the building of space shuttles. American engineers thought the fuel tanks should be wider, but the tanks were built in Utah and had to be transported by train to the Space Center in Florida, and the tunnels couldn’t take anything wider. And so they had to accept the measurement that the Romans had decided was the ideal.

But what has all this to do with marriage? Continue reading

I want to thank everyone who commented on my last post. I also want to clarify and dig deeper into part of the huge area I addressed in it. What I was really wondering when I asked "why is it so often the renunciates who are the one who elucidate sacred sexuality," I didn’t […]

Ah, so I got your attention! Yesterday, I wrote my first poem in Esperanto… unfortunately, I neglected to save it on my computer, and when my machine did one of its random reboots, it was lost and I haven’t been able to recover it. However, I wasn’t going to post it, anyway. It was, ahem, […]

My belief about love can be summed up in this one phrase:

Love is not an emotion or a feeling, it is an act of the will.

The common understanding of love generally covers the way someone feels: from queasy stomachs and warm fuzzy feelings to strong sensual passion. I have a number of problems with this type of love.

• First, in order to exist love is dependent upon the situation and circumstances. As long as a couple is enjoying a romantic situation, love can thrive. But, as soon as hurtful words or actions appear, love simply evaporates.
• Second, love is held captive to each person’s perception. For example, if someone perceives a particular quiet evening dinner with candles to be romantic, love will thrive. However, passion becomes squashed for someone whenever he or she interprets the current situation to be undesirable. Love therefore grows strong and then wastes away based upon our perceptions.

Although love at times might make us feel like we are on cloud nine, it cannot provide a reliable basis for building a deep and meaningful relationship since it is so fickle and dependent upon perception and circumstances. My understanding of love, though, is one where two people decide and commit to love one another, irrespective of the situation or circumstances. Obviously this hardly ever happens in today’s world, and this is why I don’t believe in love, the way it’s defined today. The love I believe in is one that is not limited to being held hostage by its environment and someone’s perception. It is a state of existence based upon the commitment of a decision. It entails the decision to proactively seek someone’s well-being. Since it is neither a knee jerk reaction nor just a responsive feeling to how I’ve been treated, this kind of love is capable of thriving in a hostile environment, where there are no warm fuzzy feelings.

So the kind of love I believe in has to do with serving others, more than it does with feelings. When someone’s entire being is dedicated to serving their partner, only then can it be said that that person is “in love”.

When Helen Andelin wrote Fascinating Womanhood in 1963 she had the right message at the right time. She provided an alternative voice to feminism, and she was in the right place to do it. This was crucial to huge numbers of women, particularly in the west where Andelin started out. Many women in this part of the country saw themselves as having been discounted and left behind by the very vocal but relatively small group of eastern educated elite who led the women’s movement. Andelin made sense to these women, and they wanted to listen to her. She had something important to say and she was articulate. Most importantly, she combined original thinking with the nerve to step forward in order to make herself heard in the discussion about the place of women in this country.

The following are highly recommended relationship books by Helen Andelin and her husband Audrey.

Continue reading

One of the lessons I learnt recently is powerful in it’s simplicity. An earlier discovery of this principle would have prevented much early strife in my relationships, and I’d encourage you to think carefully about the relevance of this for you:

“The most important need a man has in a relationship is to feel appreciated, admired and respected. Without her appreciation his life is but an empty shell. The most important need a woman has in a relationship is to feel loved and cherished. Without his love her life is but an empty shell. Without appreciation, there is no love; without love there is no appreciation.”

The problem in most relationships is that neither partner is willing to start the ball rolling. As simple as the little statement above is, the relevance and importance of it is smothered by the barrage of commercialised quick-fix relationship advice we are all exposed to. Consider the titles of articles in your average men or women’s magazines which proliferate newsstands today. With few exceptions, all of them violate or ignore the unchanging laws of human relationships. Is it any wonder then that divorce rates are so high today?

It occurs to me that a woman is constantly, often unconsciously, testing the man she is with to see if he is worthy of her love. She does this by placing demands on him and evaluating his responses to those demands.

A weak and soppy man will meet her every demand, and in so doing, lose her respect. A successful relationship is one in which the man recognises this trait in his woman and meets only those demands which are mutually beneficial to the relationship.