(Sorry guys, this article isn’t about what you thought it was about. But hey, the title worked—you’re here. So read on!)

An article in this morning’s New York Times laments “The Great American Cleavage,” the fact that—as indicated by recent elections—there is increasing political, religious and philosophical polarization in America these days and fewer of us in the center. My casual observations would support that notion.

My Republican friends are more overt in their strident Republicanism and anti-Democrat taunts while my Democrat friends……..oh wait, I don’t have any Democrat friends…….well, there is Kurt Wolfram, but I think he’s faking it just to keep everyone on edge….and then there is Jessica Spragg, but if we didn’t have her to rib who could I joke with…….well, at least the Democrats I see on TV, hear on the radio and read in the paper seem to be shrill-voiced, angry, even nasty in their demeanor. But then. my Republican friends are similar with perhaps only a touch more patriarchal gentility in their tone. One emailed me just this week after he’d seen us out on a carriage ride (see how genteel we Republicans can be—-carriage riding. How quaint!) during which he’d asked “Are these Republican horses?” and told me he knew they were Republican horses because they hadn’t left any crap on the streets. (Kinda funny. Worth a slight rim-shot on a snare drum and a minor harumph.)

That’s what its come down to, those with different philosophies have become caricatures instead of people.  The unthinking and vociferous manner in which we attack each other personally—because we don’t want to do the heavy intellectual lifting of thinking through what we believe, understanding what they believe, comparing, contrasting and then vigorously debating the philosophy with which we disagree—has created a national divide unlikely to be repaired. It’s simply easier to Jerry Springerize the conversation than it is to think and talk and challenge. Yet, Isaiah says the people of God are to be the restorers of the breach. So we who call ourselves His ought to at least be thinking about how to shift the tone so we can become thermostats that control the temperature of dialogue rather than thermometers that respond to it.

I believe the reason we’re divided is that we don’t know who we are. WE don’t have a culture anymore. Every individual has become a culture unto himself. We’ve heightened individualism, dummed-down morality, and reduced the teaching of who we are and where we came from. It’s no wonder we are confused as a people.

Let’s be honest, it’s gotten to where the Jaywalking segment on the Tonight Show has gone way beyond being funny that people don’t know basic things about America’s history, geography and politics and has instead become a sad indictment of our country. I propose a few ideas that might turn the tide.

#1. Let’s teach history & geography in school. Students should learn how civilization spread from it’s Middle-Eastern and North African cradle across the European continent to become what America is today. Students should learn about the oppression of autocratic government that led pilgrims to risk everything for the simple opportunity to be free. The should learn that freedom is an implicit gift from God and with it comes immense responsibility. They should be taught, challenged, and expected to step-up and embrace their responsibility to God, to humanity, and to the country. They should learn the unpopular lesson that WE is more important than ME, and be tested, drilled, challenged, and coerced to prioritize the good of the group over the good of the individual.

#2. We’ve got to require intellectual heavy-lifting. Our population has been over-run with intellectual midgets, not because they don’t have capacity, but because learning and thinking is hard-work. I’m no intellectual heavyweight. I’m kind of a middle-weight. I’ve met some heavy-weight thinkers and wow! They were impressive in their ability to bring together world history, cultural philosophy, economic reality and cultural plurality into cohesive thoughts about where we are and where we needed to go. We need to turn off the damned TV (curse highly intentional), pick up a book, learn, think, and converse. We need to challenge each other and learn the skill of argument. Puny intellects who refuse to attempt meager progress in their ability to think will necessarily be relegated to a position of inconsequence.

#3. English. That’s where we came from. Not everyone who settled America or has immigrated here came from English speaking countries but they all came in pursuit of freedom and opportunity that America provides. That opportunity rests on a foundation of rebellion, yearning, and risk taking that our forefathers embraced in order to create what is America. English is our language. In order for a team to win they have to establish a common lexicon of words that have meaning so that when the someone says “x” all the things that “x” means come to mind. It happens that in America we express “x’ in utterance that is labeled English. Embracing English is part of the package of embracing America.

Lest you think I am being inappropriately English-centric, you should know I am learning Spanish because I’m involved in missions projects in a Spanish speaking country and when I go there I know that I’ll be more effective if I learn to speak their language. The fact that people argue against this is beyond absurd, it is idiotic. In America English is the language, moreover it is the language of commerce in the world. Speak it.

#4. Pull your pants up, learn to say “yes, Sir; yes, Ma’am; please; and thank you.”

Those are a few of my starting thoughts. What are yours?

Every man should be so lucky as to have a wife like mine. I’d rather hang out with her than anybody in the world. Often I’ll ask her to go do something with me when I have no need for her assistance, but great want for her companionship. I love her so much!

It’s 7:00 a.m. I’ve been awake for an hour, blissfully happy after seven straight hours of good sleep—unusual for a male on the backside of 40. And I’ve been lying there in my warm bed beside Kelly, just pondering as I drift in and out of sleep.

I am so happy. I am so blessed. I am so grateful. I have such a wonderful life and a big part of that is a wonderful wife. As I lay here my mind drifted back to a conversation we had yesterday out at the barn where we’d gone to get the heating pad so we could plug it in on the porch so the cat could stay warm—a story digression just to demonstrate what an exciting and exotic life we live!—a conversation which she started by saying “You’re a very lucky man. The girls have practice for two hours tomorrow and I thought…….” (I’ll let you fill in the blanks while I pray that her creativity is as powerful as your imagination.)

My wife is a wonderful help to me in so many ways. She listens (though she’s kind of a busy, flitty, type so I have to catch her sometimes). She gives me good counsel. She works really hard just keeping our home up. She mows, farms, plants flowers, does laundry, keeps the books (at the office), runs the taxi for the girls, and……she’s enthusiastic in the bedroom. And I’m truly grateful, for ALL of that and more. She’s an incredible woman and I stopped her yesterday, gazed deeply into her eyes, and told her how much I appreciated her; both the bedroom her, and the everywhere else her.

I’m convinced there are many marriages that have dutiful spouses filling roles, but based on experience as a pastoral counselor and conversational observations through life, my guess is that alot of couples miss out on the bedroom bliss. A gynecologist friend discussing marriage confirmed that anecdotally when he commented recently (anonymously, of course) on an exam he’d performed on a married woman. He said “I could tell that nobody had been there since her exam last year.”

That’s such a shame! It’s more than a shame, its a travesty. In some cases its a sin. It seems like such an easy thing to fix, and yet people struggle so much. Why?

Intimacy. Oneness. Knowing and being known. It scares people. There is something in the human psyche, placed there by Satan when Adam allowed him to corrupt that prototype human hard drive, that alienates us. It causes us to fear one another, to fear discovery, to fear judgment, and we miss out on something that my physician described as “heaven—as close as we’ll get until we get there.” Indeed, the notion of oneness, acceptance, fully knowing and fully being known is part of the steamy imagery of the Bible. What we can have with our mate in marriage is SUPPOSED to portend what we can also have in our relationship with God. Marriage can be a taste of Heaven, in advance.

I think people miss out on this aspect of their relationship because their “intimacy program” is corrupted. But Kelly has a different view. She says there is no exuberance in the bedroom because there’s no kindness in the kitchen.

Hmmm.

I get her point, and I can agree with it (isn’t that smart of me—wink, wink—did I mention how brilliant my wife is).

In reality, I think it’s all the above and much more. Men and women do crave intimacy, but don’t understand it and struggle profoundly to find it—and it really isn’t about being naked between the sheets. And, there is a lack of kind sensitivity in how we treat our spouses that bleeds over into the bedroom. Boorish behavior, gentlemen, doesn’t make her want you.

Unfortunately, this is an area of life we don’t discuss much in polite company. It’s everywhere on TV, and in locker rooms. But the things we hear and learn there have little bearing in reality. Rarely do we get the chance to talk with real couples about real things…..”Do you……..?”……….and so our education and information about how to relate in this vital area comes from the Stepford Wives or the latest edition of Cosmopolitan magazine: hardly reliable sources.

It’s been our good fortune to talk with a few couples about this sensitive area, and reports that came back were that those conversations had helped improve the quality of their lives. Awesome! So, until we might someday have a chance to talk, I’ll leave you with a few things I’ve learned that might be helpful:

• Ladies, he really does need you sexually, often. Not just “available” as a tool, but engaged enthusiastically. Take the initiative in this area and you can lead him around by the……………nose. Nose. What were you thinking? You can lead him by the NOSE.
• Guys, take a bath and shave.
• Girls, he is visually stimulated. God made him that way. Take advantage of that, and feed it.
• Guys, She’s not visually stimulated. She’s emotionally stimulated. That happens through talking. She needs to talk. Listen.
• Guys, did I mention she needs to talk?
• Guys, take out the trash. Speak with kindness. She needs to feel loved and valued as a person and a partner, not just as a sex object. I know. It’s hard. She’s got breasts. But really, if you can learn to engage and communicate your appreciation of the total package, you’ll get more access to the parts you so physically enjoy.
• In the bedroom, judgment is suspended. Just have fun, go all in, and be as silly as you wanna be. (And keep the lights on for goodness sakes.)
• Turn off the damnable TV and talk to one another.
• Make sexual jokes with each other and cultivate innuendo. It creates a tension that makes life interesting and keeps you engaged with each other. I make the stupidest jokes with Kelly, and she laughs every time. I don’t even think the jokes are funny. They are so predictable. But that’s kind what makes them work. She knows I’m gonna go there, and she laughs when I do, and I laugh at the fact that she laughs. And that’s what makes us work.
• Seek to serve and help each other in every room of the house. It really is all about the other person.

There’s a lot more I’d love to share and frankly, I could write this better if I had time to go back, edit, and reorganized my thoughts. But, I’ve got a big day ahead of me. I’d better get going. I’ve got to take out the trash, shower, shave………..

Is there any chance you are trying too hard?

I’ve been feeling really exhausted; sorta the “I’m kinda worried about me” kind of exhausted. But suddenly things have changed:

#1. I cut back on my workouts. I’m doing three days a week, maybe four on a good week, but not trying to hit five days.

#2. I ate some of what I wanted. I actually had a big slab of lasagna on Tuesday evening, and a piece of cake last night. Meanwhile I’ve also focused a bit more on water intake, replacing a little carb with protein and adding some fruit.

#3. I awakened to the truth that the battles I’ve been fighting are not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual enemies (as Ephesians 6:12 says—that’s a series of blog posts in itself) and must be fought with spiritual weaponry, so I/we changed our approach to dealing with our problems.

The result? Well, I am sleeping better. When I got on the scale today I was down three pounds. I horsed a good workout this morning, and feel invigorated. My attitude at work has been superb.

My conclusion: I’d been trying too hard. Trying to push and exercise more. Trying to eat “by the law of the diet” instead of giving myself some grace but continuing to be wise. Trying to muscle-up against my problems. I just think I’ve been trying too hard.

How about you?

In baseball we teach a kid to “loosen his grip on the bat.” When he misses a pitch and hears the ump yell “Strike 1!” it creates tension, and the natural result of tension is for the hitter to tighten his grip on the bad—it’s the physical aspect of his mental resolve to hit the ball. And the result is—all too often—that the hitter becomes just a batter who got to hear “Strike 2!” and “Strike 3, yer out!”

The lessons are: Loose grip, gentle swing, just make contact with the ball, drink your water, eat your fruits and vegetables, reduce but don’t eliminate those starches you crave, and get your butt off the couch but don’t train like you’re going to be in the next Olympics (it’s the little 5K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, silly boy).

Is there any chance you are trying too hard?

A friend of mine recently posted to Facebook “Going to see <insert name of your favorite famous preacher here> at his huge church.” She was only sharing her excitement at hearing in person someone who is indeed a great teacher and whose heart is in the right place and who has helped her grow. But in the process she brought something to light that I think demonstrates—in part—why Christianity has become so unsavory (“if the salt has lost its savor”) in America. She didn’t say anything about going to experience Jesus. She didn’t say anything about going to worship God the almighty Creator of the universe. She was just going to hear a famous preacher.

I’m guilty of something similar. I enjoy hearing my pastor teach. He does a really good job. He’s had occasion recently to be gone from our church and has had a guy filling in who……..well let’s just say his fire doesn’t lite because his wood is wet. He’s a very nice man. Very Godly. Theologically correct. Good hearted. Well-intentioned. But…..he’s boring as heck. Listening to him is alot like watching paint dry. Beyond being boring, he also goes long. He’ll preach for upwards of an hour. In my opinion he doesn’t have the gift to be a teacher and I wouldn’t allow him pulpit time if the decision were mine. You could argue that if I had the right attitude I would go to worship and experience Jesus apart from the lack of skill this fill-in preacher exhibits. But…………..

Somewhere in the middle there’s a balance. Church leaders have a responsibility to be sure that those who are in the teaching role can deliver disciple development. They need to realize that if you preach for an hour to 1700 people, you just “spent” 80% of a working year (in total “people time” terms). If a year of work is worth $40,000 a boring one hour sermon just wasted $32,000.

You can’t really impute financial value to the listeners time in that way, but I think it does make a worthy point that the preacher needs to have a word that is helpful in growing people, presented in a palatable and engaging way. Then, it’s up to you and me. We need to bring our best game. We need to bring hearts that are ready to engage God, to worship with enthusiasm, to pray during the praying, to sing during the singing, and to engage, ponder, listen, and respond—internally and maybe audibly—to the teaching.

When a prepared pastor meets a prepared people, Heaven’s magic can happen. Think about that when you go to church next weekend.