engagement

I think happiness is a combination of pleasure, engagement and meaningfulness.

Comparing marriage to football is no insult. I come from the South where football is sacred. I would never belittle marriage by saying it is like soccer, bowling, or playing bridge, never. Those images would never work, only football is passionate enough to be compared to marriage. In other sports, players walk onto the field, in football they run onto the field, in high school ripping through some paper, in college (for those who are fortunate enough) they touch the rock and run down the hill onto the field in the middle of the band. In other sports, fans cheer, in football they scream. In other sports, players __igh five_, in football they chest, smash shoulder pads, and pat your rear. Football is a passionate sport, and marriage is about passion. In football, two teams send players onto the field to determine which athletes will win and which will lose, in marriage two families send their representatives forward to see which family will survive and which family will be lost into oblivion with their traditions, patterns, and values lost and forgotten. Preparing for this struggle for survival, the bride and groom are each set up. Each has been led to believe that their family__ patterns are all __ormal,_ and anyone who differs is dense, naïve, or stupid because, no matter what the issue, the way their family has always done it is the __ight_ way. For the premarital bride and groom in their twenties, as soon as they say, __ do,_ these __ight_ ways of doing things are about to collide like two three hundred and fifty pound linemen at the hiking of the ball. From __ do_ forward, if not before, every decision, every action, every goal will be like the line of scrimmage. Where will the family patterns collide?In the kitchen. Here the new couple will be faced with the difficult decision of __here do the cereal bowls go?_ Likely, one family__ is high, and the others is low. Where will they go now? In the bathroom. The bathroom is a battleground unmatched in the potential conflicts. Will the toilet paper roll over the top or underneath? Will the acceptable residing position for the lid be up or down? And, of course, what about the toothpaste? Squeeze it from the middle or the end? But the skirmishes don__ stop in the rooms of the house, they are not only locational they are seasonal. The classic battles come home for the holidays. Thanksgiving. Which family will they spend the noon meal with and which family, if close enough, will have to wait until the nighttime meal, or just dessert if at all? Christmas. Whose home will they visit first, if at all? How much money will they spend on gifts for his family? for hers? Then comes for many couples an even bigger challenge _ children of their own! At the wedding, many couples take two candles and light just one often extinguishing their candle as a sign of devotion. The image is Biblical. The Bible is quoted a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. What few prepare them for is the upcoming struggle, the conflict over the unanswered question: the two shall become one, but which one? Two families, two patterns, two ways of doing things, which family__ patterns will survive to play another day, in another generation, and which will be lost forever? Let the games begin.

I kept trying to explain and he kept shouting until I began to cry from frustration. Then he felt remorseful, which was so unlike him and endearing that I almost changed my mind and said yes. But then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again.

Nobody ever washes a rental car.

_Engagement can be a commitment to love or a declaration of war. One must enter every battle without hesitation, willing to fully engage the enemy until death do you apart.

Being comfortable with online contact is a central part of netiquette. Stay in your zone. NetworkEtiquette.net

Updates are low quality if we lose more contacts than we gain. It's over posting if all we get is exposure.

You Need To Gauge, To Engage.

When it comes to peace, we need to facilitate peace-makers' personal engagement and their genuine desire to bridge the gap between advocacy knowledge and skills necessary to differentiate between theory and practice in the field of conflict management.

A lack of engagement sends the message that you may not care, are not interested, are too busy, or that the other person does not matter to you. Even though this is rarely your intention, it can happen when you__e not being mindful and deliberate to connect in the moment.

When you are "off somewhere else" people notice. Have you found yourself in conversations in which you__e so concerned about what you are going to say next, that you don__ even hear what the other person is saying? Guilty as charged, right?

Your life is happening in the NOW, yet the present moment is often squandered by your thinking about what has happened in the past or may happen in the future.

Like the chosen Shulamite, there will be times when you too will be faced with crude assaults on your virtue, or with solicitations that will be naked attempts to cheapen your marriage. Being polite is one thing, but there comes a time. Even the peace-loving Jesus took a rope to those who disregarded the boundaries of his Father's house. Your house has boundaries too. Do what you must.pg 67

Employee engagement takes mind, heart and hands unification.

Let us agree that we are marrying so we can go on quarreling in the greatest comfort and convenience. Oh, please, Althea, look at me. Do say yes.

Saving and pinching to get married, you're losing the best time of your life.

The road less traveled continues to beckon me onward, towards a journey of transformation and engagement.

Any profession you engage in, no matter how profitable, unless it is truly helpful and good for others, is a crime against your soul, and the world.