[#] A blog about failure?

So I got this e-mail about a week ago:

...I've sought and obtained Godly, wise counsel when responding to my marital circumstances. And I've read both sides of the divorce & remarriage issue. At this point, I've pretty settled squarely into my current stand on it.

All 'at to say: My Good Brother, if you've been pondering this matter, and have previously considered blogging it, then by all means...do so. I provoke you to such, not as one seeking more guidance on the matter ~ for me, it is settled ~ but to the potential benefit of your (assumedly level-headed) readers.

I mean, after all, even if I happen to disagree with your writings, it matters little, if at all. Your blog is simply that, a web log, not a Universal Pulpit, right? (As long as you don't pronounce some kinda curse on me or an excommunication from the church catholic, or the like...)

Then, again...if for you, propounding upon this issue would necessitate your having to draw some sort of "line in the sand," then maybe just forget I ever brought it up providin' your conscience says the same.

I'm keeping the writer's ID obscure because if this person wants to tell us who they are, they can do so in the meta (and I know "they" is plural -- don't brow-beat me).

Here's where I start with this topic: I think that we, as Christians, spend too much time talking about the tragedy of divorce and not even remotely enough time talking about the nature and definition of marriage. For all the oceans of books out there trying to minister to the hurting who have been through a divorce, books about the actual state of marriage are either superficial and overly-romantic, or they are simply wrong.

Listen: divorce is tragic -- worse by far than unexpected death. And it is also epidemic (although not as bad as some people make it out to be). But the root cause of divorce is not marriage: the root cause of divorce is a failure to understand marriage and the roles of man and wife inside marriage.

So if we are going to discuss this topic, we have to start with the essential definition of marriage first, and then work from there to what the solutions are when things veer off the perfect world of the ideal and the theoretical, and it has implications which even help us sort out problems like the alleged-desire of Homosexuals to have "marriage".

Let me also say, as I begin this series, that the only marriage I have substantial knowledge of is my own marriage to my own extraordinary wife, and in that I may be basing my experience on something which is far above the norm because of the person to whom I am fortunate enough to be married to. In that, you are probably going to be offended by what I am going to say in this series. While a lesser blogger would say to you, "don't take it personal," I say to you, "take it personal because that's the only way it makes any sense."