Category: Family life

Football isn’t like marriage

This summer’s sports soap opera has finally ended with the Green Bay Packers trading their un-retiring and future hall of fame quarterback Brett Favre to the New York Jets.

Packers president Mark Murphy said, “It’s like a marriage that ends. It happens. Neither party is at fault.”

Now I’m a guy who views Superbowl Sunday as a holiday (albeit a secular one – like Labor Day). But even I do not confuse a business negotiation with a marriage.

Uh, Mr. Murphy? Football is not like marriage. Divorce is never no one’s fault. In marriage, two people take vows. These vows normally involve a lifetime commitment, unlike a football contract. Marriages the end in divorce are because one or both spouses don’t live up to those vows.

Marriage is in trouble when one of the greatest tragedies in society is equated with a football player leaving a team and no one notices.

Update 8/8:
I was watching ESPN “1st and 10” this morning and the host said that Brett Favre was coming off a 16 year divorce in Green Bay and moving into a home with his new wife in New York.

Sigh. No, ESPN. Brett Favre was only employed by the Packers, not married to them. Football is a great past-time and all, but it isn’t fundamental to a society like marriage is.

Heart strings

My wife’s mother and grandmother visited us the last two week. Yesterday, my wife flew with them back to Las Cruces for a week to attend a wedding and baptism.

I was able to get a pass to help my wife get to the gate with Bailey. During the wait for the plane to load, I was letting Bailey run around the waiting area to burn some energy off the flight. She was doing her normal thing in charming everyone she saw. She eventually slowed down and I picked her up to wait for the boarding call.

Honeybun got to go first when the time came. I got a goodbye kiss from Bailey and passed her to Honeybun. Being the Daddy’s girl she is, she put her arms out to me wanting me to take her back and fussed for a second. Then Honeybun told her to say goodbye. Bailey realized I wasn’t going with them and with a disappointed look waived and said, “Bye!” It was crushing. I even got sympathetic looks from the other passengers around us.

I miss them already. The bright side is, I actually got 8 hrs of sleep last night.

Strangers who pray

Julie at Happy Catholic linked to Patrick at The Paragraph Farmer about his encounter in a post office parking lot when an evangelical woman he never met before stopped to pray for him. Patrick asked if others had a similar experience.

A few weeks ago I took my daughter Bailey to the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden. The main feature of the shrine is a 22 foot tall statue of Jesus on top of a hill. The 373 step “Stairway of Prayer” leads up the hill to the statue. With a little help to prop her up, Bailey climbed all 373 steps.

There were quite a few people at the top when we got there. Bailey wasted no time in introducing herself to some older children in her signature jabber. No one understood her but they responded back to her and played with her for a while.

After about 15 minutes most of the other people had left. Two other men, a young boy, and Bailey and I were all that remained. At that point, one of the men took off his cap, got down on his knees facing the statue, and began praying silently. Something about his actions attracted Bailey. She stood a few feet behind the man watching him. He prayed for a couple of minutes. She didn’t take her eyes off him the whole time.

When the man finished, he stood up, replaced his hat, and turned around. He looked down and saw my daughter staring up at him intently. The man looked over at me and said, “what a beautiful girl.” He then extended his right hand to the top of her head and prayed, “The Lord bless you.”

That part is my most vivid memory. I don’t have the words to explain how it moved me to see this stranger pray for God’s blessing on my child. I could only respond with an inaudible “thank you” I mouthed. I didn’t even find out his name. He left with his friend and the boy a minute later.

The entire scene lasted less than 5 minutes but it is burned in my memory. The prayers of strangers offered in charity are powerful indeed.

What really matters

Rebecca Walker is the daughter of feminist icon Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple. Last week, Rebecca Walker published an essay in the Daily Mail about her experiences being raised by a mother who taught her that children enslave women. Her mother even wrote a poem that compared her to a calamity.

In spite of this upbringing, Rebecca discovered she wanted children. Eventually she met a man who became her “partner” and got pregnant. When she told her mother that she was pregnant and had never been happier, the feminist icon said she was shocked. Soon after Alice Walker cut off all contact with her daughter, said she was no longer her mother and is even rumored to have removed Rebecca from her will.

In spite of this all, Rebecca says

“I am my own woman and I have discovered what really matters – a happy family. “

Can I get an Amen?

I find Alice Walker’s response puzzling. Doesn’t feminism stand for women choosing their own path? What about self-determination. Feminism walks hand in hand with the “pro-choice” movement. In feminism and abortion, pro-choice does not include the choice to have children.

Daddy’s girl

Honeybun took Bailey to visit the grandparents in New Mexico this week. Honeybun tells me that last night her mother was giving Bailey a bath. She cried from the moment she was put in the bath until they took her out. During the bath, she kept saying, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” I guess she misses me.