Thursday, August 25, 2011

It's Good To Talk


Often, we hear guys complain about how much their girlfriends talk. I usually do not see this as a good sign. If you want your significant other to talk less, or if you want to talk less with your significant other, then how do you expect to stay together happily for a long time?

Now, the criticism here lies not with guys alone. Many times, when guys complain about their girlfriends 'yakking', it's because the girls very rarely say anything worth listening to. I've spoken with such people myself. I have worked alongside girls who talk non-stop about Twilight and I don't know what irritates me more - the fact that these people applaud such poorly written trash or that they seem convinced that I would buy into it, too. And that's not even mentioning the many girls I've known who considers Perez Hilton's blog leisure reading. Some people are just thoroughly uninteresting. I hear ya. But I must raise this question: why are you with someone who doesn't interest you? With whom you don't enjoy conversing for hours?

Let me tell you one of the many things that led me to believe that my beloved was truly the one I wanted to be with. When he and I were just friends, we found ourselves chatting for hours and emailing often. One day, as I was responding to his emails, a thought occured:
I could do this for the rest of my life.
I felt that he and I could talk and talk for the rest of our lives without ever running out of things to talk about. I found him incredibly interesting. Our conversations in the beginning were rarely about ourselves or our personal lives. They were about politics, religion, philosophy, literature, and so on. Every time we talked, I grow in my understanding of things, and inadvertently, in my understanding of him. Things made more sense. We were exploring the world of ideas together, seeing things in each other's eyes. I never considered myself intelligent enough to interest him, but my interactions with him have certainly helped sharpen my mind. As our friendship developed, we eventually began talking about ourselves and asking about each other - what did you do today? What kind of music do you like? What's your family like? And so on and so forth. A whole new world has opened up; we were plumbing new depths. We were getting to know each other as persons. It was exciting.

And it still is six years later. I know we will never get bored with each other. We have life, the universe, and everything to talk about. There is still so much to learn about each other. So many things in my beloved's endlessly fascinating mind for me to discover. And this is not even mentioning the many shared experiences we are looking forward to that will connect us further and more deeply.

So please, please find someone you love talking to. And perhaps equally important, be someone worth talking to. Read more, think more. Take interest in things that matter. Faith, love, beauty, morality, living the good life, meaning, purpose, and so on. If you take a genuine interest in these things, the rest will follow. Soon, you will be looking at theology, philosophy, politics, religion, etc. We weren't created with a rational mind in order to lose it on intellectual laziness. Why is this important? Because it is important to be a whole person before we are joined with someone. And we can't demand great qualities from somebody that we don't even try to achieve ourselves. Before we seek somebody interesting, we need to be someone whom they would be interested in.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Marriage hopefuls, you have friends in high places.

One of the beauties of being Catholic is having recourse to the prayers of our Saints and all Heavenly Hosts. Prayer intentions can range from finding employment to - yes, that's right - finding your future mate! I know for people who want to find good Christian spouses in such a fallen world, the search often seems hopeless and in vain. But I would advise you to keep the faith, and never settle for anyone less than a godly man or woman with dignity, depth, and who simply radiates the love of Christ. Remember, that only people who know and love God can truly love.

Most important of all, pray. Pray for guidance that you may be led to the right vocation, be it marriage or otherwise. Pray that, if God has intended you for marriage, He would lead you to the right person. Pray that you will always be open to God's plan for your life. And to help your chances, enlist the help of the Saints and Angels, particularly, St. Raphael, who is the patron saint of finding your special someone.

 © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons
As is written in Scripture 365 times, "be not afraid." The world is clearly in a bad way, but don't worry - you have friends in high places.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Marriage - You're Doing It Wrong!

Every once in a while - okay, most of the time - I encounter a blogger who has so many more wise and interesting things to say than I could. This is one of those times. Jennifer Fulwiler at National Catholic Register makes a plea to her readers not to read Khalil Gibran's well-known poem, On Marriage, on their wedding day. She summarizes the very sad and destructive approach to marriage prescribed by the poem:
1. Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
2. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
3. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
4. Stand together yet not too near together.

Read more
Fulwiler has a more fitting title for the list above: How to Have a Difficult Marriage.

How to Fail at Marriage could work, too.

Using the Via Negativa tradition, if you want to understand love, romance, and marriage, sometimes it's good to know what they are not. That is the only purpose that Khalil Gibran's On Marriage serves for the married and marriage hopefuls such as myself. The only useful thing it tells us is what marriage is not. The 'advice' listed should be seen as red flags - if our thoughts start to mirror the ideas of the poem, we should know at once that something is wrong. And fix it. FAST.

We can do better than what this sad, modern culture offers us. So let's.