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Our Daily Thread 8-5-14

Good Morning!

On this day in 1861 the U.S. federal government levied its first income tax. The tax was 3% of all incomes over $800.

In 1864, during the U.S. Civil War, Union forces led by Adm. David G. Farragut were led into Mobile Bay, Alabama.

In 1921 the first play-by-play broadcast of a baseball game was done by Harold Arlin. KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh, PA described the action between the Pirates and Philadelphia. 

In 1924 the New York “Daily News” debuted the comic strip “Little Orphan Annie,” by Harold Gray. 

And in 1981 the federal government started firing striking air traffic controllers. 

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Quote of the Day

“Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think there are no little things.”

Bruce Barton

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 Today is Rick Derringer’s birthday. You know I like out of the ordinary music, so Rick and his huge red guitar, with Edgar Winter, and Ringo’s All-Star Band. From Rick Derringer

 And it’s Pat Smear’s too. From foofightersVEVO

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QoD?

Got a will? And if so, how old were you when you got it?

68 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 8-5-14”

  1. Morning all. Time for some sleep.
    So, I have loaned and given my van to a friend, but it needs repairs. Today we went to talk to the autoshop guys and one of them had found the needed part on ebay Australia. Incredible, this part could not be found anywhere. Then one of the other fellows said he would like to buy the van. I am planning on selling it in December. Interesting the things that God works out.

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  2. Just me and Jo this morning?
    And Jo has gone.
    I wasn’t up long lost night, but I slept in this morning.
    I didn’t need melatonin, Mumsee. It was that I had something on my mind and couldn’t relax. So I got up until I could let it go.

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  4. Good morning to this side of the world, and good evening to the other.

    Yes, we do have a will. We made it when son was young in case anything happened to the two of us then we would be the ones to pick a guardian (through the will) rather than someone else picking a guardian. I don’t know the exact age, but sometime in my forties.

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  6. Sorry to hear of your difficulty sleeping, Chas.

    I was in on a conference call last night about the new AP History exam put out by the college board. It is horrendous how the best and brightest in our nation will have to be taught to score highly on this. The new history begins at 1491 and gives a totally negative slant. It is about white supremacy. George Washington is mentioned once for giving a good farewell speech. Ben Franklin is not mentioned. WWII is covered by a questioning of our nations values for using the atomic bomb. No mention of Hitler. If I can get the recording link, I will put it on here. You may be able to access it through Concerned Women for America site or the Georgia CWA site. The march is on to destroy knowledge of the history of our nation. The AP test (this year it begins) will not align with State standards. There will not be enough classroom time to teach to the AP test and cover regular history. Perhaps this belongs on the political thread. If so, please move it over there, AJ.

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  7. You all know that I’m a Dave Ramsey “fan.” He says that you need a will if anyone is financially dependent on you. He endorses usleagalforms.com, where you can develop a state-specific will for something like $30 (did you know that if you move to a new state, you need to rewrite your will?). You can also do other forms such as power of attorney and living will.

    So, to my shame, we do have a will but moved to a new state two years ago and haven’t updated it yet. I should get on that.

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  8. That header photo is a cormorant or anhinga (I think a cormorant, but I’ve only seen anhingas from a distance). Both species of waterbirds have plumage that isn’t waterproof and have to air-dry their wings.

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  9. I have a will. We got ours after we married, so I was 42. Before that I really should have had a will, since I owned a house, but since I was young and didn’t have any dependents, I figured the state would probably divide my property among my siblings, and that is what I would have done too, and i wasn’t terribly likely to die in the next five years, so I didn’t.

    My brother-in-law who died suddenly last year, leaving a wife and five children, died intestate. That leaves a problem for his widow, because they thought Alabama was a community-property state but it is not. And he would generally have titled a house in both their names, but their home was bought at auction by him, and only his name is on it; so their children now own part of the house and she cannot sell it till they are of age and able to give consent. If you have children, get a will!

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  10. I thought the bird was too dark to be a heron. Thanks for the interesting facts, Cheryl.

    We should update our will since we are at a totally different stage of life. We had a lawyer from our church put together the first will. She was basically a stay at home mom trying to do a little legal work on the side so it was a way to help her out, too.

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  11. Agree with Cheryl, if you have children, get a will!

    Our assets dwindle each year so a will is not as necessary now as when son was young. I wanted son to be able to continue homeschooling if something happed to us. So I was fortunate to find a couple who would make that happen for our son if anything happened to husband and me. Thanks be to God we did not have to go that route.

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  12. Good morning. We got a will in early 2000, which was when I was 37 and my husband almost 41. About 3 1/2 years later, we got a Power of Attorney for Health Care.

    At the time we got our will, we had three children. I’d thought for several years before that about getting a will, particularly after my sister’s husband died without a will. (They had an infant at the time, and I saw all the issues my sister had to deal with as a result of their not having a will at the time of her husband’s death. Yet my husband and I dragged our feet and did not get our own wills for another almost 8 years after my BIL died, even though we already had a child, too, at the time of his death.) Just didn’t want to think about it, I guess.

    Hoping that something won’t happen doesn’t mean it won’t.

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  13. We updated our will for NC as soon as we got here. The first part is simple. The remaining spouse gets everything. But we have distribution in a common disaster.

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  15. We had to bug our son & DIL to get a will when we moved here. We gave them the money to pay for the house, in which we put an apartment for ourselves (they pay all the monthly expenses, so it was financially a good deal for us to retire into in a few years). We realized that if a disaster struck and all four of them died, her mother would probably end up owning half of our house.

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  16. QoD: No, I have nothing to leave but personal effects and I can’t see my family arguing over who gets my violin, the only thing I have of value.

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  17. Jurassic Cat. Funny. I loved that movie. The whole premise was intriguing.

    Tuesday. I stayed up too late last night, but my lunch is made, the animals are fed and I still had a bit of time for coffee this morning before I need to get ready for work. Navy Days is coming to our port this weekend and the first of the 2 visiting ships arrives today, so that’s my story. Love it when everything for the work day is planned out and it will be relatively easy. 🙂 Although things change, they call it news.

    Chas, I heard something last night about NC … Oh, I remember, I think, was it that one of the Ebola patients was from your state?

    No will, but I really need to get one.

    Right now I’m just trying to wake up. Looks like it’ll be a little cooler (I hope) today.

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  19. You sometimes see interesting tweets on Twitter.

    “A low view of (the) law always produces legalism; a high view of (the) law makes a person a seeker after grace.” — J. Gresham Machen

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  20. We have a will, but it was not until our children were all grown and married. We knew we should have done it earlier. However, the people we would have designated to have our children did change over the years. It was a money issue for us, as I am sure it is for many young people. We did not have the internet options earlier. That would seem to be a good way to go. We did go to a lawyer, but it was all very much filling in a form.

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  22. Son’s question, “If Wayne Shorter were a cat, what would Bosley think he is saying (according to the cd playing at this moment)? It brings a whole new meaning to ‘jazz cat’.”

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  24. If you have children or possessions you need a will–which sounds like everyone here except the blessed Phos! Really.

    My husband said this morning, “Wow. With your book finished and your Bible study on hiatus, I guess you don’t have anything to do today but relax.”

    No. I need to catch up on 18 months of things shoved aside, starting with my hair–which looks like the scarecrow went through the dryer. Off to the hairdresser in a couple hours!

    The list is lengthy and growing and needs to be done this week because I’ve got reunion events all weekend followed by a guest followed by jury duty!

    LOL. It’s a great life. 🙂

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  25. Good Morning.

    QoD: Mrs L and I made a will after our third child was born. We went to a lawyer, but it didn’t cost much, less than $50 if memory serves me right.

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  26. Wills brings up another page in my continuing confusion about why young people don’t get married.

    A friend’s son got engaged recently and they’re planning a very small wedding in the backyard (10 people) by a judge. Two weeks later, the bride’s parents will host a barbeque for two dozen of their closest friends. That’s it.

    The bride sold her house last week and has moved in with the groom.

    The wedding isn’t until May 2015.

    The groom, meanwhile, a police officer is worried about what will happen if he’s killed and has told his parents he wants the house and everything he owns to go to the bride.

    They’ve said, “sure.”

    My friend asked me, “do you think he needs to make a will to make certain she gets it all?”

    M, staring incredulously at this friend who is always precise about doing legal and financial matters, said, “Why don’t the just get married? That will solve everything.”

    “Well, they want to experience the joy and excitement of the engagement.”

    Honestly, does that even make sense to you all?

    These are not Christians, but given the above, this isn’t even logical. I must have shaken my head three times during the course of our walk and said, “why don’t they just get married?”

    Who knows? Is it such a big step?

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  27. Another page, same subject.

    While in LA, I cooked dinner for two twenty-something guys. One was in town for his first job interview, 8 months after earning an expensive graduate degree from Pepperdine.

    (Note on Pepperdine. It may be a conservative school but it is VERY expensive and the graduates I know are having a very hard time paying back the bill).

    Since they were captive, I asked them about marriage. One understandably squirmed and didn’t say much because I’m his aunt and it cause trouble. The other? Happy to talk about the subject.

    He’s Armenian–the son of a Lebanese father and a Sudanese mother with a Turkish sounding last name. He explained that because of the genocide and diaspora of the Armenian people–did I know about it?–he would only marry an Armenian woman. She has to be at least a quarter Armenian.

    I just wrote a WWI novel that takes place in that area, of course I did. But I got out my Ipad to look at the map.

    He explained that only an Armenian woman would really be able to connect with him. He’s from Fresno (!) and meets them all the time at church meetings. “I’m very religious.” (An Armenian Christian.)

    I’m trained not to react.

    He expect to move in with his girlfriend in the next year–a pharmacology student–but they won’t tell their parents, “because they would kill me.”

    Somehow I mentioned an unplanned pregnancy and he explained that would never happen, “she would take care of it immediately because her father really would kill me if he found out.”

    “So why don’t you just get married?” asked the exasperated Michelle, who has not called him on any of his hypocrisies.

    “I can’t get married until I have my financial affairs in order. That’s like a law in my culture, and I have this debt I have to pay back.”

    My nephew shrugged.

    “GIrls get weird about 27-28, that’s when everyone gets married.” Both are closing in on that dangerous age and thinking about marriage. But, they never spoke of their girlfriends by name, it was always “my girlfriend,” (and I’ve met the nephew’s girlfriend). It was like a subject one step removed from them.

    But maybe it’s because they were talking to a middle aged woman who acted just like a reporter . . .

    My daughter just listened. Later she told me, “I’ve heard this before. No one gets married out of college these days.”

    Sigh.

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  28. Michelle, that is indeed sad. And it doesn’t make any sense. But I hear Christians say, “The church over-emphasizes marriage. It makes too big a deal of family.” My answer is no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t do nearly enough (in my opinion) to encourage young men to find a good wife and marry. It’s all something that will “just happen” eventually.

    I have a nephew who has been living with his girlfriend for quite a few years now. They had been together for some time and everyone kept expecting them to get married. Finally the girl gave up, moved to another city, and bought a house. He followed her. She should have said, “Listen, buster, this is over unless we get married.” But she didn’t. After a while he moved into her house (as a tenant . . . not sleeping together, so they said, but also not paying rent). Eventually the line that they weren’t sleeping together stopped being stated. (I suspect they were sexually involved long before they stopped saying that, but maybe something short of intercourse.) Sometime after my brother-in-law died, I told my sister that it saddened me that if my nephew dies, his girlfriend won’t even have the honor of being his widow. She is only his girlfriend, and that’s meaningless. When I put together the books of family history for the family reunion, and again incorporated a family tree in the books for the family reunion, I left the girlfriend’s name out. Quite simply, she is not family. I felt bad about doing it, but that is a choice they have made. (I do think my brother’s family made a mistake when they saw marriage as inevitable. For example, when a baby was born to my niece, they called my nephew’s girlfriend the baby’s “auntie.” They weren’t yet living together then, I don’t think. When they took family photos, even though this couple weren’t engaged she was in the photos. I would counsel parents “Do not treat the young person as ‘family’ until they are engaged, with a date set.” There simply needs to be a distinction–this young person is not yet family. When we have a date set–and for crying out loud, don’t set a date a year or more down the road–then we can recognize it as an “official” relationship and this person as part of the family. But marriage means something, and you don’t get its benefits until you get married.)

    My husband and I were all-but-officially engaged when I met his parents. (We had a date set, including a honeymoon cabin reservation and the church calendar reserved. We just didn’t want me wearing a ring before I had met his daughters, and we had to wait until the one who was out of the country had returned before I could meet them. So it was only a technicality that it wasn’t “official” yet.) I asked what I should call his parents, first names, last names, or Mom and Dad. He said they would like Mom and Dad, so I called them that before we were officially engaged. But, again, that was a technicality. He already had the ring–I’d been with him when we got it set, using my mother’s diamond–and we got engaged three or four days later, and we already had our wedding date chosen. But when a couple wants to say they’re engaged, but they don’t have a ring or a date, then they aren’t really engaged and don’t act as though they’re family.

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  30. Michelle, the conversation with the Armenian sounds like a similar conversation I overheard between an OR nurse and a surgical resident, while I was training in the OR. The nurse was asking this young Arab Muslim doctor about his life, just casual chat, as often goes on during an operation. He had a girlfriend, whom he lived with, but she wasn’t Muslim and he didn’t want to have children. In effect, this girlfriend was what they used to call a mistress, only, as she was a modern woman, he didn’t even have to provide for her. I had heard the same thing over and over from young men and women during my time in school, so it was nothing new.

    However, this man was Muslim and he clearly expected to marry, one day, a Muslim woman. It reminded me of a news report that I had heard not too long before – about an anesthetist student, who was arrested for making terrorist plots against Canadian targets. His fellow students expressed surprise, as they said he was a regular guy; but they did say, that all of a sudden, he had become very serious about Islam and married a Muslim wife.

    It made me realize how much young Muslim people, born and raised in Western society, grow up with a double mind. On the one had, they are born Muslim, expected to keep to a certain standard of food, drink, clothing, music, and lifestyle: on the other hand, they want to be like their secular peers. At first, with the risk-taking mood of youth, they imitate their peers, but when a sense of their own mortality and the emptiness of material pursuits hits them, they retreat to the religion they are born into. As Islam has no system of substitutionary atonement, one must atone for one’s own sins, and violence against the infidel – who, after all, tempted you – is the easy way to do it.

    I can empathize with their dividedness, for I too was raised with the double mind. The form of Christianity I learned from the homeschooling program was full of similar standards about dress, food and drink, lifestyle, and music. An instinctive rule-keeper, I developed contempt for those who did not hold such high standards, but I nonetheless, felt drawn to what most people did. Thankfully, my parents and other mature Christians around me, demonstrated the real Christianity, that offers forgiveness for all sins in the finished work of Christ. So, when I thought I had sinned irretrievably, I did not have to earn back my favour with God, for He offered it freely.

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  32. Janice, re: What a mixed up world we live in
    All is not lost. As God said to Elijah, “Yet have I reserved to myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” My siblings and their spouses all remained pure until marriage – not from a sense of obligation, but from a deep love for God and each other. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and he told me about meeting the husband of a mutual friend whom I had not seen since before she was married. This young husband once lived the gay lifestyle, even attending a gay church; but he gradually became convinced it was wrong and slowly turned his life around – he still struggles with the same-sex attractions but is also genuinely in love with his wife. It is a different world, certainly, than the one my parents grew up in, but the same God rules over all.

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  33. Re: marriage- I know of a woman and a young man whom we respect who are now courting. They decided they would not kiss or even hold hands, or any of the traditional worldly ways of dating. Pray they can. It helps that they live 90 miles apart and will only see each other on weekends in neutral places like other people’s homes or church.

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  34. A very influential person in my life is a woman named Ruth. I mentioned her yesterday on the prayer thread. She is 76 or so years old and the daughter of a Baptist minister. She taught me many things about relationshipsl
    1, A husband who stays in the dog house, soon ends up in the cat house.
    2. Homosexuality must be (can’t remember exactly what she said), because no woman in her right mind would choose to love a man.
    3. An adopted child grows in your heart not under it.
    4. Love isn’t about sex. Love is getting up in the middle of the night when you, yourself, feel like death warmed over to clean up the vomit from your husband or child.
    There were many other pearls of wisdom that I cannot recall right now, but she once told me she had a whole lot more respect for a prostitute than a slut because at least the prostitute respected herself enough to get paid.

    Of course the flip side of this is that College Boyfriend’s grandfather is turning 90 in September. The family is coming in from all over the country to surprise them. Almost Mother in Law asked me to find them a large house to rent for the week. I am included in the family get together/birthday party. College and his new will and child will be there. I plan to be extremely nice to her.

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  35. Peter, the homeschooling program I grew up in encouraged courting couple to eschew all forms of physical affection. From what I and others have observed and experienced, that is not necessarily healthy. Holding hands and giving hugs are not inherently sexual forms of showing affection and to treat them as such can create an unhealthy perspective on showing physical affection to others. The kiss before or after marriage is simply a cultural preference (See the end of Shakespeare’s Henry V), as kissing is also not inherently sexual.

    My eldest sibling and her spouse did not kiss before they were married, but they did hold hands and hug each other – they too had a long distance relationship. My youngest sibling and her spouse (the next to get married) kissed after they got engaged. My second sibling kissed her future spouse when they started dating seriously. They all discussed and prayed about how much affection to show each other. All of them stayed pure for their wedding night. Just because something is practiced by secular society doesn’t make it evil – everything must be tested by Scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit, not by secular courtship traditions of a hundred years ago.

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  39. I had one of the no-touch-before-marriage people beg me in tears to consider that standard for myself and my husband. I refused it, but we set very strict standards, and we kept them. I really think that the very most important commitment we made (before marriage) was that we would never be alone together behind closed doors. My best friend even came over to my house one time for each of my beloved’s visits so that I could have him inside my home occasionally. Otherwise he did not come in. We also went to friends’ houses, McDonald’s, the mall, the park, etc.

    I’ve had several people tell me that a decision never to be alone together is impossible because you need the chance to talk privately. I find that one funny, simply because there are so many ways to talk privately without being alone behind closed doors. Going to the park is definitely one such way. Telephone and letter are others. Because we were not distracted by physical touch, as many couples are, we talked in great, great detail. Nearly three years after marriage I still can say I have had no “surprises” in marrying this man. I knew what to expect. (That doesn’t mean there are no more layers of him to be known; there are. It simply means we had talked in great, great detail, and we did it without ever being alone together behind closed doors. We didn’t count the car as “closed doors,” by the way, because when we were sitting in the car we could still be seen by others. We never went to some secluded area to sit in the car and talk, let alone sit in the car and kiss, as that could have brought its own temptations. But we had no problem driving places together.)

    Since I’ve married, I’ve read several stories of people who marry and one partner finds out afterward that the other partner has no interest in sex or even hates all touch. Besides the fact that a no-touch rule is an extrabiblical standard, I’d strongly advise against it for just that reason. One partner can “safely” avoid any and all touch and then “endure” it on the wedding night . . . and the other spouse is then trapped.

    In fact, the person who urged “no touch” on me even used (as a “good example”) the story of someone she knew who had conducted such a courtship. During it, she told me, each one yearned for the other’s mere touch rather than yearning for sexual fulfillment. That would be a red flag to me. You’re supposed to be eager to consummate the marriage, not find the mere thought of holding hands titillating. And if any and all touch is sexually charged, how on earth can you handle it if your mother-in-law touches you on the shoulder or your pastor hugs you? What if the person who can’t wait for her spouse to touch her finds out too late that she loves his touch but really does have no sexual desire?

    If we so succeed in sexualizing all touch that we keep all singles untouched, we doom them to great loneliness or to sin. There simply is no biblical reason for such a standard. It isn’t necessarily wrong, but I do think it’s misguided and potentially foolish.

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  40. I agree with Kim that there is a real problem today with the extended adolescence we see among too many who are already adults (chronologically speaking). I don’t intend that as a broad-brush of an entire generation, as there are beautiful examples of selfless serving among some young people, including quite notably our Roscuro. But I’m afraid many young people are encouraged to “have some fun” before settling down, like the adult world is all serious business and no fun, so grab it while you can.

    The message doesn’t only come from the culture, but sadly, I think the church is partially to blame, as well. It’s not so much that they encourage fun at the expense of responsibility, but they do not encourage early marriage, either, and the growth in maturity that comes by learning to give of yourself to your spouse.

    In our church, seventh graders attend Bible study once per week with their parents during the traditional school year. Likewise in eighth grade. This past year, 4th Arrow was in 7th grade, and the pastor asked the children present on one particular class day what they want to do after high school (these are 12- and 13-year-olds). Did they want to go to college, enter the workforce, enlist in the military?

    No mention of marriage, like that could even be on the radar of someone that age (even though they were within five, at most six, years of adulthood).

    When do we encourage them to think of how they are preparing for marriage, which most of them will someday experience? We are turning their thoughts toward their own individual pursuits — what level of education do I want to attain (and what classes do I need to prepare for post-high school studies), what career do I want, what do I want to do with my life?

    I think we send the unspoken message that we need to have all our educational, professional, financial, etc. ducks in a row before we should start thinking about marriage. Get myself established, then think about sharing life with another through marriage. There’s no acknowledgment of how marriage itself can help facilitate that maturity that some consider a prerequisite to being married.

    Why not think about growing together through marriage, rather than individually before marriage?

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  41. But as a refreshing, counter-cultural example, let me just tell you that the daughter and son-in-law of a friend of mine at church got married last fall, just months after their high school graduation. She is in college, he is in the military. They love each other, and realized it while they were in high school, made plans to marry, and went and did just that, having a simple ceremony and reception.

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  42. Touch is such a basic need. A baby needs to be touched and loved. Children need to be hugged when they are hurt. Adults need to be touched. Old people especially need to be touched so that they know people still love them and care.
    Back in 2008-2009 when my life really fell apart, no one touched me. I had one friend who would hug me. Her husband was the only male allowed to hug me and only briefly. I had my child and I slept curled around her but no one touched ME. I scraped together enough money to go get a cheap $10 manicure. The Vietnamese lady clipped and filed my nails, then she put lotion on my hands and arms and massaged them. I sat in the chair and cried because another human being was touching me.
    Safe touch is one of the best things in the world and to make it sexual is an abomination in my opinion.

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  43. And on that “simple ceremony” note, it seems weddings these days are these big, elaborate, spend-excessive-amounts-of-money affairs that take lots of planning. Who has time for all that when one is concerned with school, career, entertainment, etc.?

    It seems much is made of the wedding day, and little of the marriage forever after part.

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  46. I feel the grief of this generation. One friend, who grew up with my daughter, announced her engagement last year and a month later announced her pregnancy. They now have a son, but still no marriage. It makes me sad.

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  47. I first dated Elvera on November 5, 1955. Our first kiss was in December, under the mistletoe.
    And I thought I was slow. We had lots of time alone between then and June 9, 1957.

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  48. 6 Arrows, the teaching about the proper time for marriage I remember most from my teen years seemed to centre around Proverbs 24:27: “Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house.” Basically, by that one verse, that a young man had to have all his ducks in a row in order to get married. I was very nervous when my eldest sister married a man who was still studying for his doctorate, with a large student debt. Over a decade later, he has a Ph. D. and a good job, the debt is paid, they own a house, and have five children. It was touch and go at first (at one point, they lived with my parents for a few months, while he took a factory job), but they wouldn’t change a thing. Both my other siblings and their spouses are going through those first awkward financial adjustments, but neither of them is starving or without shelter, and they are gloriously happy and contented. I like Russell Moore’s perspective: http://www.russellmoore.com/2014/05/27/what-ive-learned-in-twenty-years-of-marriage/

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  49. That’s an excellent article, Roscuro. What a beautiful illustration of the one-flesh union and growing together, knowing that love isn’t dependent on “having it all together.”

    I’m passing that article along. Thanks for sharing.

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  50. Chas, when you were dating Elvera, the cultural expectation was that young men would not take sexual advantage of young women. Sure, some couples sinned. But today, when 70% of young people marrying in the church have had sex before marriage . . . I really think that today it is almost essential to set a standard “do not ever be alone together.” Personally I think my husband and I could have held firm even had we chosen to be alone together periodically. But I wasn’t willing to put ourselves on that path to temptation. It wasn’t worth it. And I definitely wouldn’t encourage a younger couple that it’s OK. Not in a culture where virginity is mocked and sexual expression is assumed before marriage, even within the church.

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  52. This was a link from a link. It’s about the importance of touch, and what a sexualizing of all touch (particularly between men) has done to our culture. I have long thought this. Some years ago I noticed with surprise that in Dickens and I believe in Shakespeare, men hold hands or walk together arm in arm. There is nothing innately wrong with such touch–but it cannot be done in our culture. I think it’s a blessing that women friends can still offer such touches–but I’ve even heard people assume women are lesbians if they see public hand-holding. Here’s the article: http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/12/14/sexual-confusion-and-the-end-of-friendship-2/

    Re young marriage: I really think the key is preparing young men. There is almost no point in preparing young women if there is no man to marry them. We don’t want our women to be the ones looking for men and claiming them. So preparing them to be ready for marriage at 18 or 20 is preparing them to be “waiting” for at least a decade in most cases. Now, I still think that preparing a woman to be a hostess, homemaker, cook, etc. is giving her useful life skills, but I still think the main place we see a lack is in marriage-ready young men. (Marriage-ready young women are definitely an issue, too, but a lesser one.) Though I will say that raising women with the expectation that she must go to college is doing many a disservice. College is good for some, but not all. I really don’t like to see young women faced with $40-60,000 in debt before they get a start. If they do get married a year or two out of college, they may well find it essential to continue to work full-time. They can’t afford not to; they have debt. And even once they get the debt paid off, they may have a career-driven mind-set. As much as they paid for college, they feel like they have to “get their money’s worth” and work full-time for at least a few years. For me, going through college with no college debt, working in my field, and marrying in my forties, college was a very good thing. For most women, it is not that clear, and for many it’s a clear conflict with putting her top priority into family.

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  53. Speaking of preparing our young men, there is a webinar I signed up for that is online tonight at 7:00 pm Pacific time, if anyone is interested. I hope they talk some about preparing sons for marriage, but I don’t know exactly what all they are going to cover.

    It’s entitled “Walking With Your Sons on the Journey to Manhood”. Registration information here:

    https://www.christianheritageonline.org/

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  54. I know some who held to the ‘no hand holding or kissing before getting to the altar’ standard. The relatives were very quick to brag about. And bragging it was. Lots of this is more about pride than holiness. The devil loves to bind us up with lots of ‘rules’ and ways to judge one another. I didn’t agree with the standard then or now.

    I know older people who have moved in together, for financial reasons, after losing spouses. Some are the very ones who looked askance at young people who did that.

    It is sad. The saddest is that so many have no concern or knowledge about what God is most concerned about or where they stand with Him.

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  55. Kim@3:24- The problem is that the boys are weird. They used to be men at 18. Now it takes them much longer to grow up and take responsibility.

    Some never do. And it is sad when an otherwise intelligent young man is still acting like a child.

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  65. So what did I miss? No party tonight?

    Long day for me, two stories to write, it’s so good to be home.

    And our marine layer has returned, it’s going to be cooler for a few days.

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