Harebrained Schemes

Among some of my close friends I've become notorious for my ridiculous ideas. For instance, I once changed all the electronics in my house to French thinking that this would help my French language skills. It didn't work. And because I don't have a strong French electronics vocabulary, it took me forever to figure out how to reset it to English! Additionally, Peter really didn't like watching movies in French. He was particularly annoyed when I surprised him by switching his google to Spanish. Then there was the time Alina and I thought it would be a good idea to transport 7 individual containers (no lids, no trays, lots of air conditioning) of ice cream across town from our favorite ice cream place in July. Note to readers: ice cream does not travel well!!!

Well I had another one of these ingenious ideas this week. I bought myself a pull up bar. BARGAIN! Only $20 and it just sticks right in the door frame so I can do pull ups and leg lifts and get a rock hard bod for tri season. Smart idea, right? WRONG! My pull up bar was quickly reduced to nothing more than a dangle bar. It's a lot harder doing leg lifts then I remember!?!? And is there such a thing as a pull up crunches? It's a tough realization to discover I'm a dangling blob rather than the pull up leg lift machine I pictured in my mind.

Anyhow after spending an inordinate amount of time sadly dangling in my doorway, and whining about it to Alina. She suggested I lower the bar to do dips and modified pull ups. Clever idea right? She has a PhD she's clearly quite bright. WRONG AGAIN! I pulled my back doing the stupid modified pull ups. I flew off the bar and hurt myself doing another exercises!?!?! That bar is pretty much a death trap. Mind you, this whole time Peter keeps saying 'just take it down before you really hurt yourself by flying off the bar, over the stairway railing, and down the stairs.'

Well, the pièce de résistance came a few nights ago. P is out of town and the recent storms have knocked out my home phone line so I use only my cell. So it's late at night and being the diligent student that I am I'm busily working away on my final. I'm in the room with the dangle bar in the doorway and my cell phone starts to ring. I remember it is in the study so I quickly finish my sentence and leap up to answer what I assume is my husbands call. Being the dedicated and devoted wife that I am, I sprint out of the room to answer his call and WHAM right into the *#&@(#&*@ dangle bar!!! Which I stupidly set at about nose height!!! I am knocked backward onto the floor from the force! My nose has taken the brunt of the force, and it's not pretty!

I didn't go to the doctor but I'm fairly confident my nose is hairline fractured at the very least! It hurts ALL the time, is red and swollen, and while I don't have black eyes they do look a little funny. I tried to cover up the red line that I now have imprinted across my nose with make up but dabbing at my nose with make up was just too painful. It has prompted people at work to ask if something happened to my nose. Unfortunately, P is out of town so I can't just say he decked me :) which is really probably better (and more believable) then my idiotic tale. My boss was so befuddled by the whole thing he kept asking... 'but WHY did you think the pull up bar would be a good idea?' Excellent question. Sadly, I don't have a good answer.

Your thoughts? Stong words from John P.

I accidentally stumbled on this transcript from John Piper's radio show. What do you think of this? I'd be interested to hear your views.

Is it wrong for married people to have friends of the opposite sex?

No. For goodness sakes, no. But one wonders, since it came up, if by "friend" you mean something too close.

I hope that my wife considers all of my male colleagues friends. But there are all kinds of logistical dynamics that she would avoid with men that she wouldn't avoid with women.

For example, we as a staff at Bethlehem don't ride in the car alone with any woman, period. If there are two women, yes. A man and a woman, yes. One woman, No!

My wife would do the same thing. She would feel very awkward being taken to the airport, for example, by a young man if they were alone. If our daughter is with her, not a problem.

Every now and then Noel will ask a woman in the church to come clean house for her. It takes her about four hours. If I'm there, Noel stays there. If Noel has to go, I go. I don't stay in my house with this woman, even though she is a friend and a member of our church. I count her as a friend, but we take steps to be careful.

I don't think married Christians should go out to lunch with friends of the opposite sex. This is really tough in the professional world, but I'll say it anyway. Say, for example, there is a woman lawyer who is married, and she's in a firm with fifty others, some of whom are men. And a guy says, "We need to talk about this case. Let's do lunch." I don't think she should do lunch. I think she should go into his office, leave the door open, and do business there. But if he wants to do lunch, she should say, "Can Jane come along?"

So those are the kinds of things that need to be handled carefully. Yes to the friendship. But we need to preserve the whole array of dynamics that cause our spouses to know that we're jealous for saying that we're married to them. And it's right to be that way.

Say, "I'm just eager to make plain to others, 'I'm not available!' I have a man (or a woman) and I'm very happily married. I don't want to compromise you and I don't want to compromise me."

I think we have become very lackadaisical about that in the professional sphere.