Divorces and Funerals

Yesterday I heard of yet another marriage in crisis (separated, heading toward divorce). Seems like that's too many in a row--marriages dying off like there's a "marriage plague" going on! 

Marriages are organisms & divorces are funerals; To be clear, I do not believe that divorce kills marriage. To me, that would be the same as saying that funerals kill humans. Divorce is . . . how to put this . . . divorce is the "death certificate." It's what happens when the carcass of the once-living marriage has begun to decay in your kitchen, and it's better to divorce than to keep up the painful pretense.

So I'm not anti-divorce, even though I am pro-marriage. A medical student is not anti-funeral, just anti-sickness.

Let’s offer care to marriages. The ones that are ailing, the ones that are dying. Let's offer "well-marriage" checkups. Let's bring healing to sick marriages. Let's start a Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa reference) for marriages, where marriages can be brought to die, being cared for and in dignity--for not every sick marriage revives.

Here's the offer, World:
I will provide "moderated conversations" for your marriage's sake. I will provide these free of charge. For the rest of my life.

Moderating your conversation means that we sit at a dining room table (your table or mine) with both of you on either end. I guide and protect your conversation, creating a safe-zone. I take nobody's side. I offer no counsel. Sometimes my wife will be there, sometimes another friend from church, sometimes just me. We use active-listening tactics. I have good tools in my toolbox for helping stalled conversations restart and resolve. This is something we're good at, and we train you to be good at it, too, so you can pay-it-forward afterwards.

Why Free? When I see the news, I wish I were helping as a relief-worker in a refugee camp. I don't offer much to the homeless in my community. I am constantly wondering if I should become a "big brother" at the local boys-and-girls-club, but I never have. I don't go to the hospital to pray for people. There are so many ways that I don't serve humanity, but the moderating-conversations to help ailing marriage get better . . . that's something I can do. It's no more than "doing my part" when others are doing theirs--I'm grateful for the ones that have stepped into the breach in all those other areas, and this is where I take action and live out the true meaning of my creed.

For more info, email me (Tim) at sgfbend@gmail.com. Find out more about me at www.sgfbend.org.