2025
The Marriage Commitment
“I promise to love you…through all of life’s hills and valleys.”
Marriage is NOT a relationship between competitors or combatants. Marriage is a love relationship built upon mutual honesty, trust, and understanding. Christian Marriage presupposes that both of you are mature believers who believe it is God’s will for you to live and love together until death separates you.
Being happily married is never easy and contrary to popular opinion, happy marriages are not made in heaven. While the Lord will help you, you are the ones responsible for making your marriage happy…
Wedding days are glorious, wonderful, hectic, and crazy days. All of us get caught up in the beauty and majesty of the ceremony and the events that follow. Wedding days possess an energy all their own, but the marriage, the living together (as the fairy tales say) “happily ever after,” that takes some doing. It will take perseverance, learning how to live together, how to love each other through adversity, how to be transparent, how to forgive, and how to understand the complexity of another person’s motives or meanings.
Realistic marriage means learning how to listen, how to fight fair, how to see yourself through another’s eyes, and how to speak from your heart words like:
“I’m sorry; please forgive me; I was wrong; I love you.”
Marriage is hard work…[so] … roll up your spiritual sleeves, and set yourselves to work. In the process, remember, God will be with you.
– Wedding vows excerpt, © Bishop Gideon A.Thompson
2025
XYZ Technique
Formula for Success: The XYZ Statement
- Developed by PREP, the XYZ Statement is a simple formula that will have a powerful effect on your relationships. It’s a great way to ask for what you want and to encourage others to change because it includes information that can be implemented.
- To communicate effectively, just follow this guideline the next time you want to express appreciation or share a concern:
When you did X,
- Describe the specific behavior. What was the one thing he/she did?
- (This implies change can happen.)
In situation Y,
- Describe the specific situation or circumstances.
- (It’s not everything that is a problem.)
I felt Z.
- Tell how you felt or were affected.
- (Own your reaction.)
Good Examples of XYZ Statements
- When you made dinner (X) today (Y), I felt really special (Z).
- When you ignored me (X) last night (Y), I felt hurt and disappointed (Z).
- Thanks for babysitting the kids (XY). I feel so pampered (Z).
- I felt so humiliated (Z) when you yelled at me (X) in front of your parents (Y).
- When you showed up 15 minutes late (X) for our appointment with the imam (Y), I was very embarrassed (Z).
Bad Examples of XYZ Statements
When you leave your dishes in the sink, I feel like you are a slob.
- Slob is not a feeling; it’s name-calling. Instead of addressing the behavior that you dislike, you’re basically implying that it is part of their character and that they can’t change.
- Alternative: It bothers me when you leave your dishes in the sink without washing them.
You never listen to me when I talk. You’re so inconsiderate.
- Don’t over generalize. Using phrases such as “you always” or “you never” implies that the behavior happens 100% of the time, and that the issue is so big that it can never change.
- “You’re so inconsiderate” does not describe your emotions, and does not describe how you were affected. It focuses on the other person (rather than focusing on you) and is the assignment of a negative character attribute to the other person. (Sometimes this is referred to as “character assasination.”)
- Alternative: When you watch TV while I’m talking, I don’t feel heard or understood.
When we went out to dinner today, I know you didn’t want to go anyways.
- Don’t assume you know what the other person is thinking or intending. (No one can know with certainty what someone else is thinking or intending.) You fuel your own anger when you assume negative motives.
- Alternative: When you hesitated, I wasn’t so sure that you wanted to go.
In the bad examples above, the focus is placed on others instead of on ourselves, making it more likely that we will receive an angry and defensive reaction. Let’s take responsibility and focus on ourselves first.
A Better Way
- Remember your earlier statements? Change them now to XYZ Statements. Do you see a difference between your XYZ statements and the earlier ones? Is it easier to communicate? Will the reactions be different?
- XYZ statements are more specific, and result in greater awareness about needs, wants, and desires. They emphasize our experiences and feelings.
- Most of us don’t like hearing something negative about ourselves, but XYZ Statements make it easier to raise concerns in a gentle, respectful, and honest way.
- When we know how certain behaviors affect others, we are more motivated to change and more likely to accumulate positives than negatives!
- Let’s work on increasing those positives!
2025
Winter Solstice
Every year, the winter solstice is on December 21st. The winter solstice is noteworthy because it is the shortest day of the year. On this day, the earth is at its farthest point in its eliptical (egg-shaped) orbit from the sun and is beginning to make its way back towards the warmth of that fiery orb.
Despite the fact that December 21st is the shortest day of the year, it is certainly not the coldest. We usually hit this unwelcome day sometime in late January or early February.
Just as the changing of the weather from cold to warm lags behind the point of the Earth’s change in direction back towards the sun, so it is that the visible answer to prayer often lags behind the point when the prayer is answered.
By reading 1 John 5:14-15, we know that prayer is answered at the time of the request. However, as impatient and imperfect humans, we often wonder at and grumble against God because we cannot see how He is moving in our lives. Similarly, during the frost of winter, we fuss at the shoveling, bundling, scraping, slippery roads and frozen toes; and we wonder how we are ever going to make it through to spring. April seems so far away.
Deep down within us, we know that the green buds of spring are just a short while away if we will just persevere through the winter one day at a time. In like manner, as James 1:4 says, we must “let patience have her perfect work [in us] that [we] may be perfect and entire.”
Scripture teaches us (in 2 Cor 5:7, Heb. 11:7, 2 Cor 4:13-18) that we cannot serve a God who demands a walk of faith if we insist on visible indications of his works. We must continue to learn to trust in Him, to have faith in Him, to believe in Him; knowing that he is an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent God who has everything under His control.
Never forget that the God whom you cannot touch or see, sees you and is always in touch with your needs.
© Copyright, Antonio M. Parham, Boston, MA, USA, 12/1/1988, 2/7/2009. All rights reserved.
2025
Fireworks
It was another July 4th on the Charles River in Cambridge (MA), and darkness had already descended when we arrived, just in time for the show. With Michael and Jessica in tow, I had once again successfully navigated up to the front of the throng of thousands. 25 years of experience had again resulted in achieving an “almost perfect” spot — directly across from the fireworks barge on the Cambridge side of the river. You can’t get much closer to the fireworks, unless you are on a boat in the middle of the Charles (something I will have to do one day …).
Then, I noticed that some trees were going to obstruct our view of the low-level fireworks (which explode just a short distance above the fireworks barge itself). Alas, in the darkness and in my haste, I had aligned myself with the wrong ship. The barge was actually to the left a little.
I beckoned to Michael and Jessica to follow me, which they did (albeit reluctantly). I moved us to the next spot, parallel to the barge. No trees! All set! Perfect!
But Michael and Jessica were unhappy. They wanted to be all the way up front, instead of a few “rows” back from the edge of the river. However, we did not have time for that. People were set in their spots, and the fireworks show was beginning.
“Ooooh! Aaah!” the crowd exclaimed with each burst of color.
But Michael and Jessica were beginning to whine, annoying the other spectators. Michael and Jessica wanted to be up front so that they could see better, rather than having their line of sight blocked by the (much taller) people in front of them. I picked them up to give them a better vantage point from my arms. Now they were happy!
But they are no longer small children. At ages 5 and 7, they are huge, and I find myself unable to hold both of them up together in my arms for very long.
I put them down. The annoying whining resumes. I try to pick up one of them at a time, but whichever child is left on the ground immediately makes known his/her displeasure with that approach.
I pick them both up. Peace.
They become too heavy, and I put them down. Whining.
Up: happy. Down: whining. Up…
Finally, I have had enough.
I grab each of them and force them to accompany me, completely leaving the river. Now their whining has become all-out crying and wailing. I chastise them, threatening to take them home. Completely exasperated, we are now far away from any decent viewing area at all.
By ourselves, away from the crowds, I (angrily and disgustedly) start heading us back towards the subway, to go home. However, I decide to make one more try to see (at least) some of the fireworks. Michael and Jessica have settled down somewhat. Their crying & whining has settled down to a few sniffles. As Jessica sucks her fingers and Michael clings to me, we get a spot where we can at least see something.
But now we are in a very poor location. We are many “rows” back from the river’s edge, and the trees are significanty blocking our views. This time, it is not just the barge-level activity which is obscured. Now, one-third of the sky is obstructed by trees. And (wouldn’t you know it) the fireworks are exploding right in that portion of the sky.
I become very disappointed and angry. Michael and Jessica have “ruined” for me an event which only comes once a year!
But, slowly, after a few moments, I gradually learn to enjoy what I still have. I glance down and relish Michael and Jessica clinging to me. I enjoy their private “fireworks” as they playfully wave at each other with their blue, light-up sparkler toys (which I had purchased earlier from one of the street vendors).
I exchange brief, smiling, “pleasure-link” glances with the 60-ish gentleman next to me, as we both delight in a fabulous fireworks-music-synchronization moment of the show: As Christian music artist Sandi Patti’s stirring rendition of The Star Spangled Banner loudly serenades us over the high quality loudspeakers, an explosion of bright, red fireworks erupts in perfect synchronization with, “and the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air…”
Moments later, gold chains of iridescent sparklers dangle from the sky. “Nice!” I reflexively exclaim, as Mr. 60 and I “high five” each other with our eyes and smiles.
This is life! Not controllable. Not what we want. Not how we wanted it. But enjoying what God allows us to have.
As Paul says in Philippians 4:11-13:
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
The fireworks show comes to an amazing, sky-filled, multicolored, brilliant conclusion at the end of the Star Spangled Banner. Truly, a glorious evening.
“O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”
Happy birthday, America!
“Ooooh! Aaah!”
Antonio (“Tony”) Parham, July 4, 2003