A Witty Title.

This is for discussion of any of the other point raised in the relationships post (see below) that wasnt cover in one of the main topics I bought up.

This post is to discuss the comeents on "you fall for who you fall for" from the recent post on relationships.

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Ll Implied that if you meet someone your interested in then the lists go out the window. I dont agree witht his view. I think that the lists remain important. Just because I fall in love with a non-christian I'm not going to go out with her. to some of you this may seem unlikely. You'll say that I say that now, but I wouldent do it if it actually happened.

Well it did, and I did. And no, Im not giveing you any more information. It was hard. But I am convinced it was the right thing to do. I cant get into a relationship with someone who dosent share my priorities, who dosent have my religion. As much as I would wish otherwise at the time.

My point is this, there are really two lits. the one that can be compromised and the one that cant. The list I have provided and I am talking about is the one that cant. I dont think any point on that list can be compromised (althoughg there may be some situation where it can, but I can't imagine it for any point on that list) Each person will have there own additional list, one which matches the other things they look for in a potential partner, but in the end, these will not stand in the way of you falling for who you fall for. I think this first list should, at least for christians.

As LL Said, what happens if you fall for someone who is going to abuse you, neglect you, etc. there have to be some things you wont compromise on (And on that note, Im quite willing to accept that this list may not be complete.)

Anyway. Discuss below 8-)

This post is for discussion of wether it is appropriate for a christian to get into a relationship which isnt serious to ... "See if it could work" As begun in the post entitled relationships below.

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I just have one thing to say here. Are you happier with my point if I turn it round.

Dont start a relationship with someone whom you COULDN'T marry.

This post is for discussion of the topic of wether it is right to say that you should love god more than your wife/partner, as raised in the comments of the post "Relationships"

Personally, I feel, it is. We are told that the church is the bride of christ, which implies to me a relationship which clearly supports the same love a wife should have for her husband, as being the love we should have for christ.

As to wether god should be more important than our relationship with our wife, I think the bible is clear in say that your eternal spiritual relationship is more important than an earthly one, however important that earthly one may be.

Im not trying to marginalise your marriage relationship, im jsut saying its god, wife, family, then everyone else. At least, thats how I see it.

My brother pointed me at this.

It got me thinking. Be warned, it uses quite explictly emotive language. It portrays emotion. In short, its art :P

I found it very powerfull. I felt it provided a good analogy of the way we do treat God. Probarbly more extreme than I've ever heard it portrayed before.

That said, I didn't think it was a very good analogy for the point he was trying to make.

Although, to be fair the author admits that.

His point however is a good one. Single christians do have lists of characteristics that they expect in a partner, and put far too much stock in them. I'm particularly guilty of this, my list has made me incredibly picky in the girls I have been interested in.

All that said, I'm still not sure I agree with his conclusion. I don't think these lists can just be thrown away. I still think they are vital in chosing a partner. But the items on them may need to change.

Were not looking for the perfect women. She dosen't exist. Thats easy to say, but hard to live.

That said, I think some items on the list are immutable.

Perhaps there should be two lists. The list of things she needs, which could be shared between all people and the one of things I want her to have. Im going to make a stab at enumerating the first list.
(I'm gonna write this from the guys perspective, since I'm sure all the women here are capable enough to translate where appropriate :p)

1. The girl must be a christian. The more comitted the better.

Why do I see this as being important? Christianity is the most important thing in my life. My future wife will never be as important to me as my relationship with god/jesus. As such I need her to be someone who can accept taking second place to that. But more than that, I feel that an important part of the boy/girl relationship is focused arround a shared relationship between the two of you and god. And that requires the girl in question to be someone with whom I can share my relationship with god.

Thats open to lots of misinterpretation. Im not saying that this relationship replaces my individual relationship with god, just that I feel it adds a new, family relationship in addition to this.

Notice that theres shades of grey here. I dont say she must be as comitted as me, It would be nice, but thats something that we can throw out with the list. (Heck she could be more comitted than me. That would be great too, but tis not something we can demand in any potential partner.)

2.She must be female.

I'm fairly convinced that god created marriage to be between one man and one woman. Thats how he wants me to enjoy it, so thats how it must be.

3.Someone Willing to put god before me.

I guess to some extent this is an aspect of what it means to be christian. What I'm getting at here is that she needs to be willing to relate to me in a godly way. She needs to be willing to call me out if I'm not doing so to her, or if im not doing so to god. She needs to be a pro-active christian, not a passive one.

4.Someone who communicates in a way I understand, and who understands the way I communicate.

The MOST important aspect of any relationship is the ability to communicate. If you cant understand the other persons point, then you may as well give it up now. This may be something you develop over time in a friendship before you start the relationship, or it may be something you have from the day you meet. But without it, I feel, Your relationship is going to be incredibly trying and stressfull.

Implicit in all the above is that We shouldent be going out with someone were not willing to marry. Dont start what you cant finish.

Food for thought

So I've been thinking. I try to do that from time to time, just to keep in pratice. You never know when you might need that skill.

Heres what I reckon. People are built to react. Situations escelate. Arguments get heated. People disagree. And the more situations I am in like that the more I find that the situation comes down to this. Someone has misunderstood an aspect of someone elses point. Someone has heard what they think the other person is saying, not what they actually are saying. Someone was so busy trying to make their point, thinking about how they would do so, that they heard the other person say what they thought they thought.

Its so common. The bible advises christians to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. Self help books advise us all to repeat back what we think we heard when were angry about what someone has said. And yet noone does. Its a skill that is sooo rare. Its a big effort, we all need to be constantly stopping ourselves from reacting. From responding, From retaliating. And instead working to understand exactly what the other person said.

I think this ties back, to some extent to what I had to say in matthew's theorums about my friends not being deliberatly mean. I have to give the person i'm listening to the benefit of the doubt. This is another one of those lifelong efforts. It's not something your ever going to be perfect at. All I'm trying to say is that we should all be working to be less imperfect.

Food for thought.

The book I've been reading expressed an interesting point, which I thought I might share. (Lion of Macedon : David Gemmell)

Here it is.

If you saw a rabid dog about to kill a baby, what would you do?

Obviously stop it.

What if you knew the baby would grow up to be a destroyer, leading armys of slughter across the world, leading to 100 years of war. Perhaps you might let it die (No. Down. Its my podium, Im not finished.. you can disagree in a sec, :P)

But then what if the baby was to father a child who would bring about a lasting age of peace and tranquility to the land, lasting for 1000 years? What would you do then.

I've paraphrased this horribly, but the point is maintained. The point is, this can quickly become a situation where there is no right answer, your actions will lead to consequences, and even knowing them all, the right choice will not be obvious.

(Asside. This is pretty much how I see God during the creation of the world... he can see all the consequences of all the possible ways of making us before he does so. The difference is with his complete forknowledge of all consequences and his perfection, he can actually make these decisions. Ok, thats a pretty horrid analogy, but I hope you get my point.)

So what would you do in the situation above (Ok.. you can make those objections now) Personally, I would save the baby in all three cases. We dont have the complete knowledge or the discernment to make a choice like that, so all we can do is what we see to be right in all situations. And regardless, I don't think I could live with myself very comfortably if I didn't make an attempt to save the baby, regardless of his future.

Another quick one, from the same book, again heavily paraphrased (Sorry David 8-) )

When evil through its actions rises up and needs to be challenged by good, If we do stoop to its levels, If we, for example set out to murder hitler, and succeed, who wins. (Oh no, goodwins law.. I preemptivly lose any argument that springs ouit of this. Ok, substitute bush or howard.)

Well obviously hitler loses out, but in this situation, I believe evil has triumphed over good. We have stooped to the level of committing evil acts ourselves, for 'good' reasons perhaps, but it is still the first step on the road. Its justification of doing evil for the “right reasons”, which is still doing evil at its core. There is no right reason for us to do wrong. We can justify it all we want, but eventually it comes down to this. We're imperfect, can we really trust our judgement on what is right?

We cant decide to suspend the rules and do things we instinctivly know are wrong just because the circumstances change. We need to have a more solid view of right and wrong than that.

First of all let me say, Im not much of an artist. Many, MANY of my friends are, and are actually quite good at it. As such Im sure at least some of them will disagree with what I have to say here. Feel free. Im not stuck to this opinion, its just something im thinking of atm.

I look apon the state of the arts in this world, I think here particularly of literature and “art” (Painting, Drawing, Sculpting) I think it started with abstract works. Works that were genuinely done with an underlying theme, Something the artist wanted to show without being explicit.

That was the big mistake. Because people are stupid. They wont see the intended meaning, but, they dont want to admit that. They dont want to look stupid. (And to be fair, some of these artworks intended purposes were perhaps not so obvious.)

So what do they do? The look at the artwork and come up with their own interpretation of what it is trying to say. Often vastly differeent from what the creator intended.

This is what abstract art has done, It has moved ownership of deermining the “message” of an artwork from the creator to the viewer. But this move didn't stop there. Nono.. people took this self-provisioned lisence to interpret artwork in their own way, and transferred it into Carte Blanche to do so for all artworks.

The result of this is such artworks as the ½ million dollar black on black painting of (insert your interpretations here) at night.

This attitude leads to creators needing to produce their message far more clearly, clinically, if they want to have it read as they wrote it. And this will destory “ART”, if it wishes to actually have meaning. Such art will become a science, a science of communication. The best way to present a message as you want it to be heard.

The alternative, allowing some emotion to remain in the artwork immediately opens it up to interpretation by the viewer/reader. What your trying to say can be ignored and taken to mean whatever the viewer/reader wants it to be saying.

Whats my point. I dont know, but here's a thought, this attitude of interpreting things for yourself of looking for what you want to hear, projecting what you want the author to be saying onto the artwork (wether subconciously or conciously) bleeds over into areas where it really shoulden't. For examples, christians will use it to make the bible say what they want it to say.

Christian bible reading should be done in term of what we understand the rest of the bible to say, but not in terms of our own prejudices. And that's not at all easy to do. Its so easy to read what we want rather than what is said.

I think the right to define the correct interpretation of an artwork must remain with the creator. Otherwise I may as well just paint a solid black picture, and let my audience see whatever it is they most want to see (with the lights turned off)