"I didn't have the heart to tell them."

"I didn't have the heart to tell them."

I heard someone say this the other day and for some reason it just lingered inside my head the whole night. I made a mental note of it and went on with my life. But over the course of the last several days I feel like I've heard it a couple more times in different contexts of humanity.

It takes heart to share certain things with certain people. I think it's easy to just glide through life taking the path of least resistance with the convoluted motto: "The safest place to be is in the center of God's will". A motto I've found to be so misleading it makes me want to vomit. I think the most dangerous place to be is in the center of God's will. Climb into God's will and you'll experience butterflies and battlefields like never before. You'll be called upon to do the unthinkable. You'll undergo a gauntlet of misunderstandings. And above all, you'll be asked by God to muster the pluck (heart) to tell people things that are unnatural to say out loud.

It reminds me of what Jesus told Peter just before he took off and went to sit at the right hand of his Daddy, "You used to be able to dress yourself and go where you wanted to go, but now someone else will dress you and you will go where you don't want to go." A very interesting bit of enlightenment from the Messiah as to the rigors of discipleship. Namely, "you are in for a counter-intuitive" Jesus-journey. You will be asked to do things that any thinking human being would intelligently decline. You will be taken to places that will crucify you upside down. You will be invited to join Jesus in proclaiming his upside-down, inside-out Kingdom message...a message that, frankly, people will feel uncomfortable with. They will kick against the goads. Heck, we will kick against the same goads on days wondering if their is any other way -- "let this cup pass from me"?

Sometimes I struggle to have the heart to tell people what they desperately need to hear. I'm scared of their reaction. I'm wondering if it will sound maudlin and sappy. I'm scared to tell my wife what's bothering me. I'm fearful that my dad wouldn't understand. I don't want to go first risking no reciprocation. I'm nervous of being misunderstood by my colleagues. I'm anxious that it will come out wrong or that I'm in no moral position to point out the glaringly obvious. I feel my insides contracting and constricting with self-doubt and self-paralysis.

Even in ministry, I can sense when it's time to go there. God is telling me to address something that can't be delayed another day. To broach the issue. To ask the question. To share the dream. To wonder out loud in the presence of the staff. To ask my wife the fearful question, "What's wrong?" Oh my, having the heart to go there not knowing where there might take you is often a daunting notion. In some ways, I'd rather go anywhere but there. Is there another way? Can't someone else do it? I'm not equal to the task! I'm out of my league!

And then the voice of God whispers in the stillness and the smallness I've become accustomed to: "Now is the time, this is place, you are the person. I will be with you." And with painful trepidation, I muster the man inside me to take heart and speak truth as I see it. I may not always be right, but at least I'm not living in silent misery. I'm making my mark on the sands of time. I'm staking my claim. I'm numbering my days instead of numbing them.

Lord, give me the heart to tell people whatever you lay on my heart to share. "I love you." "You make me proud." "I disagree with you." "I have an idea." "I'm scared, are you?" "Thank you." "I miss your friendship." "That is sin." "I'm depressed and borderline suicidal." "I'm lonely, can we meet up sometime?" "You hurt my feelings." "You make me very, very happy." "Are you ok?" "Why do you keep doing that?" "I'm going down...I need help." "I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?" "You know what I love about you...?" Yeah...give me the heart to tell people what could easily just rot inside my soul.

I want to number my days instead of numbing them.

Straining gnats and swallowing camels...

"You strain a gnat and swallow a camel." - Jesus

This is hands down my favorite sarcastic quote of Jesus.  

I think I can easily picture Jesus as this meek man who turns the other cheek, sleeps on a rock as a homeless man, and lets little kids climb up on his knee for a tender Bible story.  But it's tough for me to imagine Jesus as tough.  It's even harder for me to picture Jesus as sarcastic--saying something that slices through diplomacy to the core corruption of the moment.  He's been given such a pleasant face-lift throughout the years, that the general populace couldn't fathom Jesus getting mad, joking around, or picking a fight (I'm not necessarily implying a physical fight, though there are times his aggression definitely manifested itself in the physical. aka - the temple tirade)

The aforementioned quote is one of my favorites because I feel that humans, by nature, tend to make mountains out of molehills, and conversely, molehills out of mountains.  They overreact and overcompensate.  I say they, but I'm part of "they".  I'm a sucker for turning big things into small things and small things into big things.  Someone said it well..."We make majors out of minors and minors out of majors."  This is an evil unspeakable.  I believe it is these subtle evils that put Jesus in a straightjacket more than beer, sex, and swearing.  But so many people get off the hook because these latent evils aren't as pronounced and announced as the blatant evils.  They are malignant just the same.  I hate how we treat them as benign nuisances.

When people make a big deal out of small things, Jesus gets torked off!  Here we are straining gnats with our self-made soul-sifter thinking ourselves cunningly intelligent and uniquely positioned to point out others' shortcomings and overgoings, when we are beautifully blind to the camel hanging out of our own soul.  We are gnat-pickers, nit-pickers.  We love to grind axes and split hairs, but are woefully unaware of our own glaring idiosyncrasies.  

Gnat focused people...

1. Are in a constant state of evaluation.

2. Try to justify themselves by tearing others down.

3. Look for ways to catch someone else in a lie.

4. Can't relax in their own skin.

5. Think everyone is just like them.

6. See the 10% bad and disregard the 90% good.

7. Are paranoid of people's opinions of them.

8. Make a big deal out of minutia, mincing and mulling over scenarios.

9. Are hard on themselves and, thus, other people.

10. Position themselves are morality cops.

11. Guard the "letter of the law" while disregarding the "spirit of the law".

12. Obsess over policies, procedures, and protocols.

13. Are master trouble shooters and horrible beauty shooters.

14. Make everyone else around them nervous with performance-anxiety.

15. Are wound up tighter than a snare drum with controlling demands.

16. Are impossible to love because they don't love themselves even though they're narcissists.

17. Are ready to crucify anyone who disagrees with them. 

18. Stubbornly refuse to be teachable because they know everything.

19. Have intelligent arguments to defend their gnatty behavior in the court of law.

20. Are largely unaware of how much people dislike them and avoid them.

The camels that are hanging out of their mouths are:

1. A gross lack of self-awareness.

2. A refusal to see themselves through the mirror of people's reactions to them.

3. A condition I call "diarrhea of the mouth".  (talking without saying anything)

4. An inability to ask questions or inquire of someone's else's story/reality.

5. A clueless conscience; very little conviction over blatant sin.

6. An obnoxious, noxious attitude that acts as a people-repellant.

7. An addiction to the approval, affirmation and attention.

8. An angry spirit that drives their every dealing.

9. An unstoppable urge to talk about other people behind their backs.

10. A perfection disorder...they can't relax in their own skin for the life of them.

11. A desire to impress others with one-upmanship.

12. (and worst of all) A stonewalling of anyone who tries to confront them on their camel.

And Jesus got sick of it.  He called it out.  In another passage he put it another way, "You point out the speck in someone else's eye when you have a big-honkin'-dog log in your own eye."  You're accusing a room of stinking when you're the one with dog poop on the bottom of your shoe.  You're making fun of someone for sneezing when you have a green burger hanging out of your nose.  You're evaluating the performance of someone else's singing ability as a tone-deaf critic.  It is this discernment-discrepancy that drove the heart of Jesus nuts.

I love how he picked this fight.  I love how he didn't back down on this issue.  I love how he stepped into the ring, put on his boxing gloves, and came out swinging.  He was tired of this tomfoolery.  This immature horseplay.  This ridiculous rats nest of religious blindness.  Jesus knew that only sarcasm would cut to the quick.  The rabbi turned rabid.  The prophet protested.  Jesus snapped.

When will the church quit its gnat-sifting ways?  When will we clean our own house instead of cleaning everyone else's clock?  How long will we live under the enchanting spell that the problem lies with "everyone else"?  Here's how you will know when the Holy Spirit has come to town...people will start asking this question, "Could it be me?"  If everyone would just concentrate on their own crap, they wouldn't have time to stir up the stink in everyone else.  I think the reason so many people have so much time on their hands is because they aren't--as a step in Alcoholic Anonymous says to do--"taking a searching and fearless moral inventory of their own soul."  When you start doing that for real, you'll be amazed at how little time is left to butcher everyone else around you.  

Lord, keep me from "Straining gnats and swallowing camels." 

the HRT and broken expressions of affection...

Taylor wrote me a note the other day in the broken, untrained English of a kindergardener: "I luv you dad.  I luv owr hows.  I luv owr famle.  yor datr, Taylor."

The translation in case you need it: "I love you dad.  I love our house.  I love our family.  Your daughter, Taylor."

I can't tell you the nourishment her writing has become to me.  Sometimes I'll get out a piece of paper and tell her to write a note, a story, a letter, a song...anything...just to hear her convey her heart brings me great joy.  I love how she takes words and sounds them out phonetically into her own little broken language.  It is the lack of training that brings such a freshness.  It is the purity of her heart that makes such rudimentary sentiments so life-stoppingly brilliant.  

We had steak last night.  One night I was playing with Taylor and we decided to make up our own game called, "Questions".  Our games are quite simple in case you haven't gathered that along the way.  This game of Questions is nothing more than me asking her a question and her writing down the answer.  I will say, "Question number one." and she will write the number "1" and proceed to jot down her one word answer.  The first question I asked her: "What is your favorite food?"  Her answer: "Sdak".  So now whenever we are having steak we are careful to dictate it as Taylor wrote it out.  Our whole family does this.  It's not longer steak; it's "sDaK".

Here's how she spells Holloween:  HLYN  (our family now calls it ha-leen).

-or how 'bout Rainbow: RABO 

-check out Sisters: SISBERS

-I love this one, Pumpkin:  PUKIN

I have to believe that this is how God interacts with our beautifully broken speech.  He loves to hear us talk in our cracked-up, shattered logic and ana-logic.  He feels the affection of our misspelled language of love and life.  He loves hearing our child-like responses to his Quest, his Questions.  He feels our hearts behind our unedited expressions...and his heart is moved.  

We beat ourselves up trying to "get it right" as he smiles with delight, moved by our attempts.  Our attempts, in themselves, are enjoyed.  Do you get that?  It's like he's says: "I see where you were trying to go with that."  We see them as failed attempts, he sees them as valiant attempts, affectionate attempts.  In this case: "It is the thought that counts, and counts most."  Our thoughts will never be His thoughts, our ways His ways, our words His words...at best it will be slurred speech, stuttering lips forming a clumsy "I LUV U".  And in his Father-love, he translates them with great joy into "Grammatical Correctness".   

Or maybe he doesn't.  Maybe he doesn't care about grammar as much as we might think.  Maybe he just looks at the heart to begin with.  Maybe he just leaves our "love note" just as it is, reveling in the attempt, glorying in seeing his child fighting for expression, laughing at the signature of that unique soul and feeling the warmth pulsating in his heart through his veins, crying at the customized affections of his cherished child.  At least this is what I feel as a father with Tay.

I don't want her to learn to write like me.  I wish she could stay in this uninformed altruism.  I hate thinking more about my grammar than my guts.  I wish I could just pour out my guts without thinking about how it's dressed and how that dressing compares to the refined outfits of others.  If I could just pour out my heart unedited, unrefined, un"adult"erated.  It is that adult thing that seems to kill genuine feelings, thoughts, and actions.  I hate my adulterated affections.  Sullied by years of editing.  I'm so conscious of MLA formatting that I lose the man in the "man"ufacturing.  

"Man"ufactured, "Man"icured, "Man"ipulated, "Man"euvered, "Man"aged...and in the end I feel like my heart is "Man"gled.

And then you're reminded of what it's all about when you watch your daughter "put it out there".

It's all about--as Taylor writes it--the HRT.

Gd,  hlp mi hrt to b truw.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for my life.  Thank you for my girls.  Thank you for ears to hear their voices.  Thank you for eyes to see their beauty.  Thank you for arms to hold their bodies.  Thank you for a heart to feel their girly love.

Thank you for my life.  Thank you for my wife.  Thank you for the beauty of her heart.  Thank you for the strength of her passion.  Thank you for the enveloping love of her affection.  I cherish her.

Thank you for my life.  Thank you for my church.  Thank you for people who love your kingdom.  Thank you for friends who support me.  Thank you for a place where I feel freedom to be me.  Thank you for a body that loves wonder.

Thank you for my life.  I'm grateful.

Pastor and Person...

Being a pastor and a person sometimes seems mutually exclusive.  The reason I know this is because I'm inordinately conscious of the difference between the two on most days.  Oh, there are small bits of time when I live in a pure stream of consciousness that blends the two together seamlessly.  But on most days, I find myself torn between the two, asking God to give me fresh ways to be both without canceling either one out.  The neutralizing/neutering of either would honestly break my heart.

This could be one of many reasons why I'm deeply intrigued with the God-Man Jesus, not that I'm equating myself with His Majesty, but you see what I'm getting at.  How can you live in the one role without losing the other.  How can you be fully both instead of working out some 50/50 deal?  How can you feel "today" and yet live in the realm of "forever".  How can you feel people's emotions in the moment all the while knowing the future?  How do you walk the tightrope holding that pole, with those polarizing polarities, without overcompensating and consequently losing balance.  I know they aren't enemies, but sometimes it seems so.  It can't be easy to be God and Man.  

I'm not implying that I relate to the God/Man Christ Jesus on all levels, but sometimes the peculiar nature of Pastor/Person seems to carry a similar tension.  The Pastor in me knows truth.  The Person in me knows temptation.  The Pastor in me is drawn to people.  The Person in me is cautious of people.  The Pastor in me leads.  The Person in me needs.  The Pastor in me is happy.  The Person in me is crappy.  The Pastor in me feels high.  The Person in me feels dry.  The Pastor in me can't help myself from caring.  The Person in me can't help myself from falling.  This juxtaposition is ever reminding me of its existence.

There were days when I wasn't so aware of these schizophrenic personalities.  I lived with a solidarity filled with unknowing altruism and innocence.  I hate admitting that.  I feel so sullied by years of expanding awareness, like a kid that thought his city block was the whole world only to find out that his house was on a block in a town outside a city within a county that was part of a state in a region of a nation on a continent of a planet in a galaxy within a vast and infinite universe.  All the sudden the simplicity and wonder of the city block prunes up, taking its place in the great circle of life (reference the the epic animation "Lion King").   Things that used to be wonderful slowly become wonderless.  It's funny how knowing less actually led to living more.  It seems that the opposite would be true, but I guess that's why I've increasingly used the word "seemingly" to begin sentences when explaining life.  Oh, to return to the boyhood neighborhood where the world was your oyster, and life wasn't lost in the explanation of it.

But I digress.  I only speak of the wearing down that happens over time making you painfully aware of things that break you into pieces; pieces like Pastor/Person.  And yet, there is something in me rebelling that division.  I'm fighting tooth and nail to be both simultaneously.  I'm fighting to not lose my personhood in my priesthood.  I'm fighting to hold tightly to each role knowing the loss of either invalidates both.  The church has suffered greatly from Pastors who forgot they were People.  I think the opposite is also true, that we live in a world filled with People who have forgotten that God has called them to be Pastors (caretakers, sheep-tenders, shepherds of humanity).  There's a bit of holy and human in us all, really.  The disregard of that reality spirals us into a tailspin of madness.

I am a person. I am human.  I love being human.  I love my frailty, my fragility, my finicky fascinations and fetishes.  I love my weaknesses as well.  I'm a sucker for feeling things deeply to my own detriment.  I love that.  I love that I can't help myself from being swept up into the stew of story...whether it's a love story, horror story, or sob story.  I'm undeniably and irresistibly human through and through.  "Fearfully human" as Anne Lamott eloquently says.  If someone is looking for chinks in my armor or chips in my character, they will surely find them.  The reason being I love my life and I stubbornly refuse to treat myself inhumanely for the sake of image.  I know a good many pastor-posers who have fallen hard due to this self-destructive/seductive inhumanity.  

I am a pastor.  I love being a pastor.  I love caring for people's souls.  I love seeing life change and being right there when it happens in real-time.  I love listening to people share their struggles for the first time.  I love expelling the darkness with truth.  I love reminding people of their glory and taking their hopeless grope and attaching it to a gropeless hope.  A hope that isn't something you touch with your senses, for hope that is seen is no hope at all as it says in the Scriptures.  Helping people toward hope is what I live for.  I love being a see-eye dog for the blind, a crutch for the cripple, an IV drip for the famished, a hug for the hurting, and hand for the amputated.  And it is this divine calling that compels me to give when I have nothing left.  And I will not treat myself indivinely which is just as detrimental as treating myself inhumanely, in my humble opinion.  And so I seek to cling to the one without losing the other.  And herein lies the dilemma that led me to write this in this first place.  I've come a full circle now, haven't I?  

Maybe this is the circle of life.  If so, I suppose I shall be running in circles the remainder of my earthly life.  But if keeping both alive means feeling like I'm running in circles, I will embrace this dizzy discipleship. 

Bright Star, John Keats...

I went to a movie a couple days ago, Bright Star.  It was a beautiful depiction of the life of John Keats, the luminary of romantic poetry.  This particular poem was quoted in the movie and it stirred my blood so deeply.  I would encourage anyone who loves romance to find where this movie is showing within a 200 mile radius and take your heart's companion.  Read and weep.... Bright Star  by John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--  Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-- No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

Aly's last Daddy/Daughter dance...

The time had come to dance again

You could feel it in the air,

I saw it in my daughter’s eyes

As she practice-primped her hair.

 

“Are you getting excited?” Aly said

as she hugged me ‘round the waist,

“You better believe it!” I replied

as I picked her up with haste.

 

I swung her clockwise in the air

And sang a made-up song,

And as she smiled with girly glee

She sighed, “It won’t be long.”

 

I laid her in her fluffy bed

And hugged her with a cleave,

She shot-gun giggled with delight

on this Daddy-Daughter Dance Eve.

 

The whole day long my mind would drift

To dancing with my princess.

As she gathered with her giddy friends

All dolled up in their dresses.

 

Before I knew it, the time had come

to head toward my home,

where Aly was prepping for the night

with her makeup-artist-Mom.

 

As I turned into the gravel drive

And pulled up toward the garage,

I saw my girls off to the left,

And it felt like a mirage.

 

All preened and prissed was Aly Grace

With a mother’s custom care,

She stood there proud inside her dress

With her curly brunette hair.

 

She posed against the maple tree

As her mother snapped some shots,

I walked toward her with a smile

“I love you lots and lots.”

 

“I love you, too, Daddy!” she said

nasal toned and nostrils flaring,

I needed to go and change my clothes

But couldn’t keep my eyes from staring.

 

My little girl was growing up

Right before my aging eyes,

These moments won’t be here for long,

You get no second tries.

 

I hustled to my closet space

And fetched my nicest suit,

I combed my hair, put on cologne

That smelled like passion fruit.

 

I went downstairs and presented myself

As my daughters “ohhed” and “ahhed”,

They love it when I get all dressed up

And become the handsome dad.

 

We packed the family in the car

And headed out to eat,

Aly wanted for everyone

To enjoy this special treat.

 

Logan’s Roadhouse was the chosen spot

For our little pre-dance meal,

We ate free peanuts like elephants,

While Kami said, “What a steal!”

 

We finished up and headed home

To drop off her mom and her “sissies”,

And then we traversed o’er to Meijer

To get a surprise for “Miss Prissy”.

 

We parked the car and Aly said,

“Daddy, what are we doing here?”

I told her she had 10 dollars to spend

On whatever would bring her heart cheer.

 

She picked out a Webkin, I think that makes 12,

It was a Reindeer with antlers and fur,

She decided to name it Rudy for short,

I said that was entirely up to her.

 

We left the store and turned toward the school

She hugged her new animal tight,

The weather was perfect, the sky was clear

This was gonna’ be a glorious night.

 

When we walked in the school she skipped to the desk

Where they handed out tiaras and sashes,

Just like you’d see in a Miss American pageant,

Where the whole place sparkles and splashes.

 

We hit the dance floor like two butterflies

Spinning and swirling around,

No happier couple in the town of Lowell

Could possibly ever be found.

 

Between my legs I swung her frame

Then I snapped her to her feet,

Jigging back and forth like squirrels

We swayed to every beat.

 

The faster songs she danced with friends

And I would bow it out,

But when a slower song came on

I’d hear a little shout.

 

“Dad!” she cried with her little voice

“It’s time for us to dance.”

She’d grab by arm and lead me out

Where we’d assume the stance.

 

I took her little hand in mine,

she hugged me around my waist,

And bending down to cradle her,

I softly kissed her face.

 

The slower songs would settle her

And sedated in romance,

I’d pick her up; she’d straddle me

we'd spin as if entranced.

 

She’d bury her head into my neck

As I kissed her peach-fuzz ear,

I’d quietly whisper, “Love you, Grace”.

While I shed a fatherly tear.

 

Crying happened throughout the night

As I’d watch her lost in life,

There’s nothing better than innocence

To cut me like a knife.

 

As is the custom the night would end

With a love song for each date,

Aly knew it was coming really soon,

Like predestinated fate.

 

And when it came the song rang out

Like a spell was cast upon us,

I closed my eyes and took it in

Like a first encounter with Jesus.

 

“The smile on your face

lets me know that you need me

There’s a truth in your eyes

sayin’ you’ll never leave me

 

The touch of your hand

says you’ll catch me if ever I fall

You say it best

when you say nothing at all.”

 

I rocked her back and forth that night

Remembering her birth,

When I took her in my loving arms

And heaven came down to earth.

 

As time stood still her life had passed

Before my mindful eye,

And as the song came to an end

My heart began to cry.

 

These moments in a daddy’s life

Are fleeting as a mayfly,

Here today but gone tomorrow

How quickly time goes by.

 

I kissed her neck again and again,

She snuggled on my chest,

I tilted my neck toward her ear

And said, “Gracie, you’re the best.”

 

We pulled away that cool fall night

She sighed and held my hand,

“I hate when this happens,” she blurted out

I completely understand.

 

When we got home, she brushed her teeth

Preparing herself for bed.

I was downstairs upon the couch

Resting my weary head.

 

When all the sudden I heard a sob

That spoke of a broken heart,

Aly was weeping to her mother upstairs

Falling helplessly apart.

 

I heard her coming down the stairs

To give a goodnight hug,

She climbed upon my manly chest,

As snug as a bug in a rug.

 

She started to weep with sorrow deep

Like my little mourning dove,

I clasped my hands around her back

Embracing her with love.

 

I told her that we’d always dance,

We didn’t need an event,

We only needed our heart’s to seize

The dance in each moment.

 

With swollen eyes she smiled at me,

and I kissed her salty face,

This ends this story of my second born,

The adorable “Alyvia Grace.”

Vintage Marriage...

check out this article on vintage wine...

________________________________

Vintage Wine

Generalization can help the wine lover grasp wine complexities to a certain extent. The weather conditions (mild winter, frost, hail, rain before harvest) undergone by the vines and grapes give collective traits to the wines of a certain year in a given region. Here I am thinking about a cool climate such as in Oregon, France or Germany. Here below are examples.

In France and the Italian Piedmont, the 2003 spring rain deficit and the ensuing summer heatwave often resulted in wines that lacked freshness.

In practice, wines of a given county - if bottled at one or two months interval - may share some features:

• They are difficult to taste for the same length of time (a few weeks for the 1997s in Burgundy and the Loire Valley, a few years for the 1998s);

• They share an acidity tendency: most of them taste fresh (1996 and 2001 in France) or most of them taste flabby (2003 in Europe);

• They are rough (1998 in France) or smooth (1996 and 1997 in Burgundy);

• A fine wine in an "exceptional" year (1989, 1990, 2000, 2005 in France) is a keeper: it will reward being cellared longer than a wine from the same plot in a "difficult" year (2003, 2004 in France). 

  ________________________________________________

  Vintage as a word hails from vineyard antiquity.  It is used for a variety of things in our culture, but it's origins are found in the vineyard field of interest, which makes sense based on its root word, "vine".  I've often thought of vintage meaning old, precious, priceless, seasoned, valuable, rare, etc. ... which would be accurate in some senses.

  I love the idea of weather conditions (mild winter, frost, hail, rain before harvest) in a certain season affecting the vintage nature of the wine in good or adverse ways.  I can think of seasons within my marriage where we've undergone inclement seasons that have produced a more vintage texture and taste within our relationship.  There have been very cold seasons, early frost even, that directly impact the wine produced in that year, for the good or bad.  There are certainly exceptional years followed by a "cellared" aged wine that makes me think there isn't a rival glory in all creation to marriage.  However, there have been certain very "difficult" years that have produced a very different product.  Some of those days and years are ones that you wonder if you should bulldoze the whole vineyard and call it quits.  

  I'm reminded that the care of a vineyard, much like the care of a marriage, is deeply reliant on an outside source, a Chief Vinedressor to provide the weather patterns that produce vintage wines.  You can do all you can in your own power to care for the vine, but if "Mother Nature" (or "Father Vintner" rather) isn't providing rain and shielding frost, it won't matter.  

  The absolute collaboration with God is essential to producing vintage wines.  These seasons that we go through Rough/Smooth, Fresh/Flabby (I love that one!), Difficult/Exceptional . . . we won't survive unless we are praying to the Vinedressor/Vintner of Heaven to send rain and to protect from heatwaves.  He has to be an intimate part of the marriage for it to produce vintage wine.