Daley Ponderings

9/13 - A Friday. Jonathan had been asking me if he could read Harry Potter for a while.  I told him I needed to talk to Daddy about whether we thought he was ready, but I kept forgetting.  The strategy that worked was asking me in Daddy's presence so I didn't have time to forget.  So the decision was "yes, but you have to finish all your school and chores first."  Immediately after completing those in record time, he ran to the library.  Jonathan proceeded to read the first Harry Potter book in four hours.  He started book four by Saturday evening. In these first two days, whenever he talked about the story, he kept calling Harry "Arthur".  Daddy made him take a break from the constant reading on Sunday, but Monday (after school) he was at it again.  He finished the whole series the next Saturday 9/21.  So that's an average of a book a day.

9/16 - Jonathan whistles the Imperial March from Star Wars while reading Harry Potter. (More)

Heather and I had the opportunity to attend a marriage retreat with 10 or so couples from our church this weekend, up at Rangeley Lake in Maine (thanks Scott, for the house!)

We were the youngest couple (by far, the average marriage length represented there was 31 years), and we haven't been in this church for very long, and so we feel out of place in some ways - some of the people have known each other for decades, and have been married for longer than we've been alive.

In the following video, Doug and Betty Henderson discuss some aspects of their marriage.  Technology failed (the battles consisted of Apple vs. Windows, HDMI vs. VGA, HDMI vs. analog audio, and after all of those were accomplished, CPU speed or a codec issue...), and so we weren't able to see the video until we got back home.

I had a couple things strike me during this video - one is one I've thought about before.  Two of the first couples that were around my age to get married said that they didn't believe in the bible verse that says:"let not the sun go down upon your wrath (Ephesians 4:26)" as that led to just being tired and still arguing.  I always wondered about it, but figured - they know better than I do, since they are actually married, and I wasn't.  After we got married, and the very few times that we would be lying in bed not talking to each other, we always (eventually) came back together to talk and resolve the issue before going to sleep, and so I think it is a good practice.  What I was reminded of today is that those two couples are now divorced, and so perhaps this discussion could have provided an "early warning" of what was ahead, if they continued on the same path.

Heather and I do also have some difficulties shopping together, and I'll have to ask the Hendersons if they have any solutions other than not shopping together.  It does seem like it doesn't happen as much now (in NH) as it did in Pennsylvania - I think we drove a lot more in Pennsylvania, so we would stop by a store on the way to somewhere else, where we are now more likely to go out specifically to shop somewhere, and so probably shop together less often than we used to.

I was also struck by Doug's comment about not having a "bosom buddy", and not really seeing the need for one.  Another guy at church made a similar statement this weekend, though he has been looking for one.  That does seem to be a common occurrence at churches, at least from my perspective - most people are comfortable where they are, and are not interested in adding any close friendships.  As a campus minister said when I left college - prepare to be disappointed - that's just the way our modern, busy lives are.

I did enjoy the weekend, and we drove up and back with another couple, and some other conversations at the retreat were good, so it does give me hope for the future.