Marital Poop Detector

            Growing up my mom used to use this analogy to encourage us, her children, to watch good entertainment and the reasons why she didn’t want us viewing a certain rating on movies and tv. She brought in a plate of brownies. They looked good, they smelled good. We all wanted to eat them. She said, “You are more than welcome to eat them. But you should know they have just a teeny tiny bit of cat poop in them.”  Yeah, that’s gross. Of course, we were all repulsed!

            My mother’s analogy can go much further than judging worthy entertainment. In his renowned book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” Dr. John M. Gottman talks about having a “Marital Poop Detector” and the importance of “recognizing early whether something just doesn’t smell right!” (page 280) Poop is gross! No one wants poop where it shouldn’t be! (Any dog owner or mother of young children have enough evidence of that!)

Where’s the Poop?

Gottman breaks it down for us. The poop is in the “Four Horsemen” as he refers to them:

•   Criticism
•   Contempt
•   Defensiveness
•   Stonewalling

The first place to start sniffing the poop is in your own thoughts about your dearest. When you recognize the poop you are putting into your relationship, you can make the first “repair attempt” by stopping it. A repair attempt is “any statement or action – silly or otherwise – that prevents negativity from escalating out of control” (Gottman, pg 27).

Cleaning up the Poop

            In the missionary manual used by full-time missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Preach My Gospel” missionary companions are instructed to hold a weekly companionship inventory, where they discuss goals, strengths, and challenges that may be withholding them from “working in unity.” Likewise, M. Russell Ballard teaches in his book, “Counseling with Our Councils,” the importance of weekly family councils that can be as small as two individuals, such as husband and wife, where the same idea take place. Love is the spirit of the meeting. As it turns out, Dr. Gottman encourages the same weekly model of asking yourself improvement questions and using “soft start-ups” with your spouse when addressing issues. Respectfully using voice, action and constructive behavior, we can clean up the poop messes in our relationships and lessen the poop.

The prevention and the antidote: cultivating your friendship.

Citations:
       Gottman, John M., "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" (2015), Harmony Publications

      "Preach My Gospel" (2019). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missionary-service/title-page?lang=eng

Happy Marriage

I’m no expert in photography, but I think having cell phones we each understand the basic of picture taking: focus

We all want our pictures to turn out looking good and to demonstrate what the point of the picture is all about: the focal point

If we could photograph marriage, we can see that many people view marriage with varying focal points.

However, there is only one focal point that leads to not only successful marriages, but eternally lasting and happy marriages.

“Jesus Christ is the focal point of a covenant marriage” as stated by Elder David A. Bednar of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ living and serving today.

What is a covenant marriage and how does it differ from a contract marriage?

Elder Bednar sums it up for us:

“Eternal marriage is not merely a temporary legal contract that can be terminated at any time for almost any reason. Rather, it is a sacred covenant with God that can be binding in time and throughout all eternity.”

Taken from a photography focused website, the author sums up the photography lesson in four points which I compare with Elder Bednar’s teachings of covenant marriage in quoted italics:

Let’s Compare Photography Focal Points with Marital Focal Points

1.  The focal point of your photo should be the most important subject in your frame.  "The Lord Jesus Christ is the focal point in a covenant marriage relationship. The ultimate blessings of love and happiness are obtained through the covenant relationship of eternal marriage" (Bednar).
2. Use compositional techniques to help you place your subject in a powerful position and use other elements to frame it. "The importance of eternal marriage can be understood only within the context of the Father’s plan of happiness. Ultimate happiness, which is the very object of the Father’s plan, is received through the making and honoring of eternal marriage covenants" (Bednar).
3.  Use background and foreground blur as another technique to frame your focal point. The plan of happiness is revealed through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, with the background of our premortal existence with God and the foreground of our return to live with Him as eternal families.
4. This blur is controlled by aperture, focal length and relative distances in your scene.  "Satan desires that all men and women might be miserable like unto himself. …understanding the intent of an enemy is a key prerequisite to effective preparation. [Satan] works to warp the elements of the Father’s plan he hates the most. The devil has attempted to combine and legally validate confusion about gender and marriage" (Bednar).

  

One way to help us in our marriages is to remember, “Husbands and wives need time together to fortify themselves and their homes against the attacks of the adversary.”

•     Pray together.
•     Study Scriptures together.
•     Attend church and partake of the sacrament together.
•     Make sacred covenants together in the House of the Lord, temples of God.
•     Worship Jesus Christ together, to receive the Holy Ghost as your guide

Ponder this:

“As we consider the importance of our personal example, do you and I discern areas where we need to improve? Is the Holy Ghost inspiring our minds and softening our hearts and encouraging us to do and to become better? Are we focusing our efforts on strengthening marriage and the home?” (Elder Bednar)

None of us are experts, except our Heavenly Father, in a perfect marriage. Let each of us as individuals and as couples turn to Him for direction. He points our "cameras" towards Christ, giving us the opportunity to use our lens and focus on His Son. When we focus on Him, we will see peace in our lives.

Citations:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2006/06/marriage-is-essential-to-his-eternal-plan?lang=eng

https://thatssage.com/blog/focal-point-food-photography/

"Sheep in the Midst of Wolves" Part 1

I didn’t want to be seen as a “crazy person who believes in conspiracies”. Yet, here I am having read the agenda of gay activists Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill, “The Overhauling of Straight America” and find myself in shock of the tactics they choose to use to “desensitize the American public concerning gays and gay rights.” I find myself relating to Lehi from The Book of Mormon, who preached truth and was persecuted for it. That despite my efforts to choose my words carefully, they will be taken in offense. That despite the evidence, it is taken lightly and passed over with little thought.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I, personally, have come a long way in how I view the LGBT community from a complete lack of understanding and confusion, to being able to honestly feel sympathy and love towards them. I sympathize with the desire to be understood and eager to be accepted as I am while not feeling pressure of changing myself to fit another’s mold. I recognize as well, that members of a choir, singing their different parts, still unite their many voices as one. We are all part of the same choir.

What I don’t agree with is the tactics of deceit they openly planned to use (and have used) in this article that later became a book. Referring to the classic camel in the tent idiom they said, “First let the camel get his nose inside the tent--only later his unsightly derriere!” They well know and intentionally manipulate the American public through their sly tactics, playing on the public’s humanity and good-willed emotions. They manipulate and make the public come off as bigots and haters, well knowing there are truly only a few in our nation with those ideas.

I don’t like feeling like a pawn in someone else’s hands. I don’t approve of manipulation for personal gain. There are honest and upstanding ways to persuade others. The tactics and purpose of this agenda are those that Jesus Christ warned about, “wolves in sheep clothing” (Matt 7:15) and “being blown about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph 4:14).

It’s not just the agenda of the National Gay Task Force (Kirk and Pill, 1987) that use cunning craftiness to push forward their personal plans, it was also used by the five consenting Supreme Court Justices in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 to change the definition of marriage.

The remaining four Supreme Court Justices thoroughly bring to light in their dissensions how these five judges ignored law and the Constitution, and used philosophy and personal opinion in their decision. In essence, they misused their judicial power. They stole away the government of the people, democracy, and replaced it with their own power and sovereignty. Five singular people deciding for the entire nation. (Obergefell v. Hodges, dissenting decision 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 4 ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting).

             “…a Justice’s commission does not confer any special moral, philosophical, or social insight sufficient to justify imposing those perceptions on fellow citizens under the pretense of “due process.” There is indeed a process due the people on issues of this sort—the democratic process. Respecting that understanding requires the Court to be guided by law, not any particular school of social thought.” (pg 22 dissenting)

Are we to just give up our rights? Are we to have them stripped from us?

And just as the camel’s nose has made its way in to mainstream America’s tent, we see the camel chewing away at our rights, neglecting the order and laws of the judicial system, and demean the very contract our nation was founded upon, the Constitution. No wonder! The law and contracts have no meaning to them. They have put themselves above them. They neglect the greatest contract of our nation (the Constitution) and destroy the contract of nature, of marriage.

             “Marriage did not come about as a result of a political movement, discovery, disease, war, religious doctrine, or any other moving force of world history—and certainly not as a result of a prehistoric decision to exclude gays and lesbians. It arose in the nature of things to meet a vital need: ensuring that children are conceived by a mother and father committed to raising them in the stable conditions of a lifelong relationship.” (pg4-5 of the dissenting decision). To those who drafted and ratified the Constitution, this conception of marriage and family “was a given: its structure, its stability, roles, and values accepted by all.”

          “…the marriage laws at issue here involve no government intrusion. They create no crime and impose no punishment. Same-sex couples remain free to live together, to engage in intimate conduct, and to raise their families as they see fit. No one is “condemned to live in loneliness” by the laws challenged in these cases—no one.” (pg 17-18 dissenting)

             "Neither petitioners nor the majority cites a single case or other legal source providing any basis for such a constitutional right. None exists, and that is enough to foreclose their claim." (pg 16-17 dissenting)

See "Sheep in the Midst of Wolves" Part 2 for my conclusion

"Sheep in the Midst of Wolves" Part 2

If they have no claim on redefining marriage, yet the judicial system passed it, what is really happening here?

The true focus they have and are aiming for is not simply to make marriage available to the LGBT community. Something deeper is at play. It’s no secret either. Kirk and Pill stated it in their 1987 article. The aim is to desensitize and demoralize the American public. They make such claims as, “First, we can use talk to muddy the moral waters.” And “Second, we can undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology.” Demoralizing our nation will destroy our nation. And we are drinking the Kool-Aid.

I know now I must better heed the counsel to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” since we are “sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matt 10:16). I want to demonstrate Christ’s love for all.

All who feel the struggle that comes from same-sex attraction, know that there is a place for you among the rest of us. We are all the same in our differences. We each struggle in our different ways. We each are imperfect until the great day of resurrection when we are raised to immortality and incorruptibility. Let us all press forward in faith, walking side by side, until that glorious day.

Marriage, Divorce, and Cohabitation

Debunk the Myths

Divorce doesn’t affect anyone except the two involved.

Cohabitation is a good gauge to a successful marriage

Cohabitation is a good alternative to marriage; it isn’t better or worse than marriage

            Actually, divorce does affect others. Children, first off, are the prime victims. “The children in (single-parent) families have negative life outcomes at two to three times the rate of children in married, two-parent families.”^a  Extended families feel the turbulence. And if that doesn’t surprise you, divorce affects the entire nation’s social stability. “…more permissive divorce attitudes are associated with lower-quality and more unstable marriages.”^b

While some of us feel indifferent about divorce and/or cohabitation “researchers are finding that the disappearance of marriage in Middle America [the almost 60 percent of the nation who are high school educated but not college educated] is tracking with the disappearance of the middle class...”^c

What is the truth? What works?

Marriage is the answer. Marriage works. “A good marriage does not require a perfect man or a perfect woman. It only requires a man and a woman committed to strive together toward perfection.”^d Marriage improves individuals who work together especially in trying times. “Prevent unnecessary divorce” is the call of Elizabeth Marquardt, David Blankenhorn, Robert I. Lerman, Linda Malone-Colón, and W. Bradford Wilcox, in their address “The President’s Marriage Agenda for the Forgotten Sixty Percent”.^e Prevent unnecessary fatherless families. Prevent unnecessary out-of-wedlock childbearing. Let’s show commitment! Marital commitment fosters healthy family life, healthy economics, healthy national stability, while decreases crime, school drop-outs, and drug and alcohol addicts, amongst several other benefits to society.^f

What can I do if I’ve already been affected by these circumstances?

Be the Change! 

No matter what type of family you come from, YOU can be the change towards good! Build a happy family by following the pattern that works!

“In a former era, the Lord sent a flood to destroy unworthy lineages. In this generation, it is my faith that he has sent numerous choice individuals to help purify them.”^g - Carlfred Broderick, professor of sociology, University of Southern California.

“A transitional character is one who, in a single generation, changes the entire course of a lineage. The changes might be for good or ill, but the most noteworthy examples are those individuals who grow up in an abusive, emotionally destructive environment and who somehow find a way to metabolize the poison and refuse to pass it on to their children. They break the mold. They refute the observation that abused children become abusive parents, that the children of alcoholics become alcoholic adults, that “the sins of the fathers are visited upon the heads of the children to the third and fourth generation.” Their contribution to humanity is to filter the destructiveness out of their own lineage so that the generations downstream will have a supportive foundation upon which to build productive lives.”^h (p. 18) - Carlfred Broderick (1992). Marriage and the Family. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

We all come from varying backgrounds and family life. Yet, each of us is stronger than we think. When we find the strength within, which I believe comes from Jesus Christ, we can overcome literally any hell, from the slightest to most painstaking. You and I can be the “filter”. You and I CAN change our course. We can “break the mold.” Just like Han Solo, though frozen in carbonite, presumably trapped forever because of his past, was saved from his mold. He was broken free. (Just a little Star Wars analogy for fellow fans. 😉).

Citations

a              Mary Parke, Are Married Parents Really Better for Children? (Washington, DC: Center for Law and Social Policy, 2003); and W. Bradford Wilcox et al., Why Marriage Matters: Thirty Conclusions from the Social Sciences (New York: Institute for American Values, 2011).)

b              Paul R. Amato and Stacey J. Rogers, “Do Attitudes toward Divorce Affect Marital Quality?” Journal of Family Issues 20 (1999): 69–86.)

c (also e and f)     Elizabeth Marquardt, David Blankenhorn, Robert I. Lerman, Linda Malone-Colón, and W. Bradford Wilcox, “The President’s Marriage Agenda for the Forgotten Sixty Percent,” The State of Our Unions (Charlottesville, VA: National Marriage Project and Institute for American Values, 2012).

d              Elder Dallin H. Oaks Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “Divorce” Ensign, 2007. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2007/05/divorce?lang=eng

e              (see citation c)

f              (see citation c)

g              Carlfred Broderick, professor of sociology, University of Southern California. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/1987/05/questions-and-answers/questions-and-answers?lang=eng

h              Carlfred Broderick (1992). Marriage and the Family. (p. 18). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Practice Makes Perfect

I'm back!

It's only been 7 years, but here I am again. I have a class assignment and need to get back in the game of blogging to succeed in my assignments.

I'm very much out of practice with how to use the blogging tools and am writing this post, simply for practice.

Most likely, its a waste of your time to bother reading it. In fact, please don't. I don't want my writing to be judge from this.

Thanks for looking away. :)