It’s Joan of Arc‘s birthday (c.1412):

“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.”

While a bit off-topic for the purposes of this blog, I found J.K. Rowling’s commencement speech at Harvard both witty and wise. Take the time to watch it.

“I had been set free because my greatest fear had been realized and I was still alive.”

(commencement speech at Harvard, June 5, 2008)

Lindsay Lohan supports my views on sex education!

The actress also put out a plea to parents, saying they need to “talk to their children about the things that can result from being sexually active.”

Maybe I can get her to be my Let’s Talk Month spokesperson!

When we honestly ask which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness…makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters. ~ Henri Nouwen

Going thru a box of assorted papers, I rediscovered this quote which I had ripped out of an old magazine. I find it’s especially meaningful to me this week for several reasons. It’s my husband’s birthday today, and on Saturday I’ll be saying good-bye to a good friend and her family. As I reflect on both relationships, I can think of many missed opportunities to be fully present. How much easier it is to talk about kids or work. How difficult it is to be quiet amidst pain, to listen without offering trite advice, and to truly hold another person – physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Marriage as a spiritual ordeal begins when, disillusioned of romance, two ego-bound, flawed, individuals co-promise. We promise to end our tentativeness; to stop withdrawing; to remove the conditions we have previously set for bestowing the “reward” of our love; to be ego-enemies and soul-friends; to pursue the solitary journey together.
– Sam Keen, Hymns to an Unknown God

Therapist Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic, recently said:

The way I see it is that I meet many couples in my practice who may be sexually faithful and are betraying each other in so many other ways. Neglect, indifference, contempt, lack of respect, stonewalling, disqualifying, devaluing, ridiculing, lying, deceit and so on. There are so many ways that people let each other down, betray each other, tear the trust, demean each other, all the while they are sexually faithful. So why is it that we think sexual betrayal is the mother of them all?

“Marriage is not supposed to make you happy. It is supposed to make you married, and once you are safely and totally married, then you have a structure of security and support from which you are free to make yourself happy, rather than wasting your adulthood to look for a structure.”

From Grow Up! by Dr. Frank Pittman

“No one is ready for marriage — marriage makes you ready for marriage.”

– David Schnarch, Passionate Marriage