Is respect central to your marriage?

by Christopher Smith

I’ve always believed that the foundation of a relationship between a man and a woman should be respect, plain and simple.  Love is wonderful to have, attraction is always fun, but without that solid foundation of respect, a marriage is on borrowed time, at best.   Unfortunately, love can fade, attraction can fizzle, but respect is tied to personality and as long as the personality doesn’t change, the respect for the person will last a long time.

It’s amazing to me how little I have heard of this throughout my life.  For example, my wife has a pillow that was given to her during her Bachelorette party with the term “Wisdom for the Bride” written across it.  It has very interesting, and very valid pieces of advice, such as “don’t go to bed angry” and “always communicate”.  Yet I did not see anything regarding respecting each other. 

To me, respecting one’s spouse is partially acknowledging the marriage as one unit, but also accepting one’s spouse as an individual with their own desires and goals.  The very same rules you learn growing up about treating others with respect applies here.  While ideally there is a 50/50 dissemination of responsibility when respect is the foundation of a marriage, as situations change in life, this must shift temporarily.  If one spouse is at a time in their life when they’re weak, the other becomes stronger to support them and get them through it.  But it must be temporary and it must not be exclusive to one side only.

It seems in society that the “norm” is for one spouse (quite often, the male) to simply do whatever their counterpart wants automatically.  Many times this is simply to avoid confrontation.  That does not and never will fly with me, as my wife can attest.  If my wife disagrees with something I’m doing, we sit down, discuss it, and come to a compromise.  The same works, vice versa.  If we fight, we fight…but we get it out in the open and we do so respectfully.  I don’t lay down for her and I certainly don’t expect her to lay down for me all the time.  This is a huge part of my personal idea of respect in a marriage.

I was lucky in that the marriages in my family gave me quite a bit of material to NOT emulate.  I came from three previous generations of Smith men who were notorious wife beaters.  My father abused my mother and myself severely for years before she finally had the courage to divorce him.  She eventually re-married, and while the man she married didn’t abuse her physically, I got the sense that he didn’t respect her at times.  He would not allow her to go out with any of her friends or do anything by herself (or would do so begrudgingly).  I think as the years went by, she resented him for it.  I did not want that to be us.  This example was one of many that helped formulate my views on marriage and respect.

But, while I was raised by my mother to respect others, the one event the cemented the idea of respect in a marriage was when my Grandmother passed away.  Two days before she passed, she gave me her final wish.  She asked me to promise her that I would not become like my father (her son).  Her wish was that when I got married, that I would respect my wife and not hurt her. She felt my wife deserved to have a happier life than she and my mother did.   She knew from the time I could walk that it was part of God’s will in my life to break the cycle of abuse.

I took that promise very seriously.  She passed 14 years ago, and I still honor it today just as much as the day it happened.

Without a doubt, respect must be the base of a marriage.  We must not ever forget that, while it unifies us into one whole, marriage does not dissolve us as individuals.  I believe one of the purposes of marriage is not to change a person, but to support, enhance and nurture that individual throughout their journey in life.  A marriage is healthiest when both sides do this for the other.  My grandmother believed this.  As we move forward in our marriage, I like to think she lives on in us, but most of all, I’d like to think that she was proud of us for what we have become.

Is respect central to your marriage? Or is there another foundational element of marriage that is central to you?

PS from The Editor: the last session of Laura Henson's "What's Love Got to Do With It? Building and Sustaining Healthy Marriages" is this Sunday at 11:15amish.

Reflection on Holy Week and Easter

(Ann Carlton wrote a great thank you for our Holy Week and Easter services. You can find it online in the "What's New?" section in the April 22 Good Sam Notes pdf edition (online soonish).)


by Leanne Shawler,
Communications Director


I sing in the choir for my church and so was at every service for Holy Week except the noon Good Friday and the early morning Easter service.

All in all, I have to say this is the most profound and moving Holy Week I've had in a long time. If I had to guess as to why I would say some of that is because of my faith journey over the past year, some of it letting go of needing to stage manage every detail of our services (ok, so folks in the office are laughing as they read this -- but I mean in the moments right before the service. I prepared plenty), and some of it because of the love our community holds for God and each other, and God being present during those services. 

Maundy Thursday: I felt a bit disconnected during the foot washing -- the choir sang and so didn't participate as we've done in past years -- although one of us did go up after we'd done singing. I’m not sure whether or not I missed getting my feet washed or not. It was nice to sit back and not feel like I had to stage manage the whole thing as in previous years too. 


I was deeply moved when we buried the sacraments in the Memorial Garden. It not only felt like we were actually burying Jesus but I suddenly felt as if my sin, my body had been buried with Him. 

Reading of the Passion

The combined Good Friday service with the Newman Center was special even if it started late and went longer than I expected, but I just went with the flow and experienced it as it happened. 


“let us kneel ... let us stand..."

Patty (who works in the Newman office) and I wove the solemn collects/prayers of the faithful together ... I would've made the prayers a lot shorter as it was tough to kneel on tile, which I felt I had to do given that I was right behind the altar. How could one not kneel?  

Saturday's Easter Vigil was the high point for me: we spent a good chunk of it outside, sitting around a sort-of campfire, telling and singing God's story in history, and Revbecca asked us if we would add our story to those we'd already told. God is still working in history.

I decided for energy reasons, and because I was still getting over a nasty cold, to skip the early morning Easter service. They had dolphins show up (it was on a pier). I am bummed about that. Dolphins! Pelicans!

Easter itself was a bit of an anti-climax after Vigil, although Chris gave an awesome sermon about the freedom given to us by the Resurrection and the baptism was just a wonderful moment too. 

 What were your favorite moments of Holy Week or Easter?

Experiencing Jesus' Passion...

by Thom Kassebaum

At the age of eleven, I was diagnosed with a kidney condition which made it necessary for me to take large doses of medications for several years. When I was in high school, one of those medications had to be administered intravenously, usually in the back of the hand.  

Between frequent sessions and the occasional slip of the needle, the backs of both hands became scarred. I attended Happening 16 where I heard "I AM" in a still small voice in my head. 

Six months later, I went to a Discovery Weekend [a family retreat] at Good Sam, where the teenagers had a small group of their own. We listened to a recorded description of Jesus' passion. 

We heard in vivid detail of what a cat-o'-nine-tails was, how many lashes it took for that whip to kill someone, what kind of thorns were smashed on Jesus' head, what the "hand" of the ancient world referred to... on and on. 

I started to daydream, wondering what it felt like for a piece of steel to go through my hand from my palm, using my thumb to mimic the nail. I closed my eyes to fully experience it and my fingers gently brushed the bandage from where the intravenous needle had gone in. I turned my hand over and pressed hard. No, I didn't know what it felt like for the nail to go in from the palm, but I sure knew what it felt like for a small-gauge needle to go from the back forward, what kind of damage was inflicted in the name of "helping".   

"Unless I see the nail marks in his hand, and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand in his side, I will not believe." 

 I put my finger where my nails were, I put my hand in my side; how much more did He die for me! All I remember is seeing His face and mumbling to myself, "My Lord and My God" and, "the doctors were only trying to help."

Why Go to Holy Week?

by Nancy Higgins

We have been challenged to identify where we see or feel God at work in our lives, and I feel that presence most closely during Holy Week.

I'll admit that my first time to attend the Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil services came as a result of being in a choir. However, I discovered how easy it was to really understand what Jesus went through, and His sacrifice for me in these 3 days. 

On Maundy Thursday we hear that Jesus washed His disciples feet. What an amazing act of love. I can feel that love when someone else washes my feet. Even if I have my hands washed, the love of one Christian for another comes through. 

Later in the service, when the altar is stripped, the nakedness of the altar is shocking. It make me even more aware that the next day Christ will die for my sins. We follow the Light of Christ to the memorial garden, and then go home to think about what will happen on Friday.

Good Friday is solemn, as those of us who have experienced death of a loved one know. But as Christians, we know that the next night will be a celebration. And that is what Easter VIgil is. We start in the Memorial Garden where we left Christ, but now we know the tomb is empty. Joy abounds.

I invite you to come and share with fellow Christian the love and sacrifice of our Lord. And please join with me on Easter shouting Alleluia Jesus is Alive.

Have you ever felt that you were walking with Jesus through this time?

Where is God When You Feel Helpless?

by Betsy Veneziano, as told to Leanne Shawler

My Dad was on home hospice this past summer. He lives in Maine. I had already seen him a couple of times in 2011 but I was waiting for the call that the end was near so I could go back to Maine.

The night my Mom called me and said that the hospice nurses had noticed some change and they thought that the end was near -- that was the exact same day Hurricane Irene kicked up and all flights to the east coast were canceled.

I couldn’t get a flight for five days. 

It had always been in the back of my mind to wonder how long it would take to get back if there was an emergency. If it happened in the winter, there is always the snow and getting back to Maine then is horrible. If he passes away in the summer, no problem.

Who would’ve thought that a hurricane would affect Maine?

I couldn’t get a flight. I felt extremely frustrated and helpless because there was not a darn thing I could do to get there.

I also had this nagging in my head. I was really bothered by the fact that no clergy person had been to visit Dad. My Mom was an every Sunday type of person, but he didn’t go to church. He was always willing to help out, especially with carpentry. If the old rundown church needed work he was there to work on projects.

It’s a small town, so the clergy person at the Congregational church knows my family and everyone knows everybody. 

But nobody had visited him, which bothered me very much, because when I’m on my death bed, somebody better be praying over me!

I couldn’t go in person, but this was one thing I could do. So I called the minister of the Congregational church and asked her why she hadn’t been to see him and if she would go and see him.

She was so nice.  The reason she hadn’t been was because she’d been waiting to be asked, knowing that my Mom was a very private person.  So, a miscommunication. 

I said to her, “I know my Dad never went to church,” and she interrupted me. “Oh, he went to church. He just went when no one else was there.” 

She went to see him, read him some scriptures and prayed with him. I think she gave him what he needed to let go. She thanked him for all his work and how much the church had appreciated his time and talents ... and he died that night.

I felt so good that she was able to make that visit for me, just in time. Maybe the nagging to contact her was God letting me know that Dad needed something.

How has God answered your prayer when you’ve felt frustrated and helpless?

How Do You See Our Sunday Liturgy?

by Leanne Shawler

"The gifts of God for the people of God" is said right before we receive communion in at Good Sam. It's an Episcopal Church tradition that I'm sure is not unique to my church.

Communion, or Eucharist.

It's not a big leap to eucharisteo, especially when the liturgy leading to the actual distribution of communion is called "the Great Thanksgiving." Jesus's Last Supper is one of the key images that Ann Voskamp uses in her book to illustrate eucharisteo.

The whole service is a thanksgiving: preparing ourselves to be present with God ("cleanse the thoughts of our hearts..."), remembering how God has always been a part of our story (the readings from the Old and New Testaments) and giving thanks, giving thanks.

Giving thanks for a God who became incarnate, a God who took our sufferings, our wrong-doings onto Himself, out of all time and in all times, and died to give us salvation.

How could we not give thanks?

Thinking back, I'm astonished that I ever thought my church's liturgy was dull. That's the hazard of growing up in the church, I guess. You never think through to the power of what's happening -- and are surprised when you feel the uplifting Holy Spirit.

It should be like that from beginning to end, not just when I'm transported by singing a hymn, or by an isolated moment...

Every word. Is thanks.

How do you see our liturgy, our Sunday service?

(reprinted, slightly edited, from Leanne's personal blog, Provoking Beauty, with permission.)

When God put His arms around me....

by Ruth Lim

One of the moments when I felt God put His arms around me was when Samuel was around 10 years old. He had recently joined the St. Paul's Boys' Choir and was picked by director Martin Green to sing a solo for a presentation at ComiCon.

But he didn't tell me he had been chosen. Parents were invited to come listen the night of the dress rehearsal.

So here's the San Diego Master Chorale, with a hugely important guest conductor, and the conductor turns to Martin and says, "Boy soloist." Martin looks at Sam, who gets up on stage and promptly drops his music.

My heart stopped.

A dad sitting next to me puts his arm around me and says, "Breathe, Mom." I get up and walk to the back of the hall in order to start breathing again, and sit down in the darkness to watch.

Sam calmly picks up his music and starts to sing. It was flawless—this little voice soaring beautifully with the whole Master Chorale.

That's when I felt the Lord put His arm around me, saying, "There. You need not have worried. I am with him."

After all Sam had been through, I'd worried about him—is he going to be OK? can he do this? All the things moms worry about, plus. And here I was, in a darkened theater, listening.

"You need not have worried. I am with him."

(This is reprinted from "40 Days of Devotions in Lent", 2011.) 


Have you ever felt God's arms around you? What was it like?