Tuesday, March 31, 2009

A Symptom of Our Collective Narcissism

This is from a very well read sports blog on ESPN by Bill Simmons. A section from a post where he responds to questions from his readers:

Q: Why can't Hollywood make a movie about a guy who doesn't get married, keeps his friends, loves life, dates hot girls up until they get crazy. But also show his old college roommate married with kids, a nagging wife, a crap job he can't quit because of the kids and mortgage. This should be made and mandatory viewing for any single male by the time he hits 18. At least he would have a fighting chance. If you have a great marriage awesome. But I would tell you that nine of 10 married guys I know are in the old college roommate state of life right now. Good luck all you engaged men. (Suckers.)
-- Gabe B., Waterloo, Iowa

SG: And that wraps up this month's installment for "Fellas, Don't Get Married!" By the way, I'd like to give a special shout-out to my buddy Sully, who's already trained his two young sons to answer the questions "How old will you be before you can think about getting married?" and "Where are you going to college?" with the answers "35" and "South or West." Now that's great parenting.

Sad. I pray that we can model a more winsome picture of Christ-exalting and satisfying family life for our culture. Do you have friends that could see this in your life? If not, we should probably find some and live it for them. This implies that we know the gospel and live it. I say we give it a whirl.

2 comments:

Greg Breazeale said...

I just dont get the American view of marriage! Even as a non Christian, I relished the idea of having one woman for a lifetime. When I became a Christian I relished it even more. Furthermore, my wife and I just had our first child on March 21 and I cannot conceive of seeing him as a burden or an inconvenience!

I long to model a high view of marriage and a high view of parenting that makes the Gospel look good! Pray for the men in this country! How we need them to live radical masculinity!

GB

Joe Selness said...

I read that mailbag and was disappointed. Not only is that view of marriage sorely deficient, but the person asking the question seems oblivious to half the movies and tv shows Hollywood is churning out to perpetuate that attitude.

But in my experience, my married friends are happy, and our relationships are not the same (not bad, just not the same).

Have you ever met someone like the man Gabe extols, who never married, never wanted to get married, and keeps dating flighty young women well into his 40s? They are not the kind of men anyone wants to be. They are a little bit off.

I think that Christian marriages should be antithetical to what Gabe suggests, and Christian singleness should also be different.