All Letters

My dear Jil, I’m going to talk to you about a virtue not in abundance in this world of ours – patience! Marriage requires patience. Couples have to be patient with each other. Very patient. If you keep flying off the handle, you’re not going to have a happy marriage. Will be full of tension. Besides, it’ll provoke an equal and opposite reaction in the counterparty, your spouse. Two can’t afford to be mad at the same time in a marriage. A wise party will defer even legitimate feelings in that situation. In a marriage, emotions have consequential value. We’re either building our marriage or tearing it down, daily. When in anger we say unconscionable things to our partner we forget we can’t take the words back. And words are powerful. Words can damage human psyche, words can eviscerate affection. If there’s something you should be mindful of in marriage, it’s words. Spouses are supposed to build each other up, not tear each other down. Spouses are meant to be supportive, not denigrative. Continue reading →

Dear Jack, you’ve got to loosen up. Loosen up. There ought to be fun in marriage. You can’t be all that serious in marriage. Yes, marriage is serious stuff but there should be fun and play. You’re going to spend the rest of your life with this person. Make the history being created fun! That kind of relationship should accommodate a range of emotions and experiences that are joyful. Life is hard enough, times are tough enough. You’ve got to find moments of laughter and happiness with your partner. Both you and your wife ought to have your rituals of joy. It begins by not taking yourself too seriously, letting your guard down, being willing to be made fun of. Continue reading →

Dear Jil, I think it’s good for husband and wife to share, to talk about things – issues and life’s challenges. Marriage makes a burden lighter. Two can share a problem, two can think together, pray together. And when discouragement comes you draw strength from your partner. That’s why marriage is a binary equation. Carrying the load yourself may prove too much for you. Share the burden with your partner. The more you share burdens and issues the closer you become. Both of you are involved in each other’s life. Continue reading →

Dear Jack, come on! How could you have fallen for this ruse? Clearly this woman targeted you and you fell for it. Any woman could have warned you. Women see these things afar off! And women say men never see these things, that men underestimate devious intentions of the feminine variety. Women can smell a groom raider miles off, which is why they implement strategic defensive maneuvers. This woman clearly set you up. She came needful of emotional comfort with a view. Of course one thing will lead to another. And now she’s pregnant. Only now you realize you were set up. I warned you about opportunistic sex. You ought to be careful, though in your case that advice is no longer applicable. Continue reading →

My dear Jil, this is the story I was writing:

“He fumbled the key on the lock, prised it open and stepped into the house. As soon as he stepped in he could feel the atmospheric difference. The house felt cool. He interrogated the coolness. The difference was marked. His head told him the house felt cool because he was stepping in from the glare of a sun about to go home. The problem was, there was light in the sitting room. The sun managed to filter through the slits of the venetian blinds. So it wasn’t the absence of harsh sunlight that accounted for the shade in the house. Something else seemed responsible. Continue reading →

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Dear Jack, the young man I spoke to you about… He gave me the letter his father wrote him. Was in the probate envelope. Very touching letter. I’ve asked for permission to share it with you: “My dear son, a good father prays that his son be greater than him. May you be greater than your father. May your father’s accomplishments pale in comparison to what you’ll achieve in life. Your father’s achievements only portend the scale of your accomplishment. May you be eminent. Continue reading →

My dear Jil, couples owe themselves a duty of care. A relationship is customized and privatized affection. By care, I mean the actual caring for one another. But it’s not limited to that. It also involves the notion of caring and WANTING to care. The wanting to care is what we call affection. Yes, we take those oaths during wedding ceremonies – For better for worse, in sickness and in health… So there’s a context of care when your partner falls ill, or when things take a wrong turn. But care is beyond illnesses. If we limit it to just illness it means the man who never falls ill will never receive care. Continue reading →

My dear Jil, I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie, Deja Vu. It’s a 2006 movie. Stars Denzel Washington. It’s about an ATF agent who travels back in time to prevent a domestic terror attack against a ferry carrying 543 US Navy sailors, their families and crewmembers. (ATF stands for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives). The amazing time-travel technology employed was a program called Snow White. It enabled the investigating team to fold time four days backward – precisely 4 days, 6 hours, 3 minutes, 45 seconds, 14.5 nanoseconds. They could do this using several satellites to triangulate image of events. But the system had a limitation. It can only see past events once, and there’s no fast forwarding or rewinding, though it can record. Snow White is actually a time window. And with it you can alter what we ordinarily call destiny. Continue reading →