Dating and the Single Parent Essay Example for Free

Dating and the Single Parent Essay Summary In the book Dating and the Single Parent Ron Deal walks the single parent through the process of dating again. This book is broken into three sections. Section one has five chapters and is titled â€Å"Getting Past the Butterflies and Warm Fuzzes.† In the beginning Deal starts with â€Å"Dating in a Crowd: Dating with Purpose.† (29) With this in mind the reader begins to understand you will be dating the entire family. Deal describes different types of daters, and warns the reader against the â€Å"Consumer daters who want guarantees† (44) about the dates. These consumer daters want the dates to be their all in all and meet their every need. Deal also describes the thought of â€Å"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall; Am I Ready to Date? (47) This section describes â€Å"the impact loss has on you, and your willingness to surrender to God’s direction regarding divorce and remarriage.† (58) While determining if you are ready to date; Deal lists the readiness factors: can you handle being alone, trusting in God, looking at past issues, and asking the questions like, â€Å"What in my past can I not shake?† This is getting yourself and kids ready for dating. While thinking of fear as the main hurdle in beginning to date, Deal suggests you not â€Å"sidestep† (83) your fear but â€Å"acknowledge it.† (83) Not only your fear but how to handle the kids’ fears and concerns in the dating world. Deal explains â€Å"When a parent dates, kids feel the shift in direction away from them and the family; this ignites their fear of more loss.† (98) The second section of the book is called â€Å"Going Fishing† (115) and talks about finding love. â€Å"Finding love in all the right places †¦and in all the wrong ways† (117) talks about defining the  relationship or the DTR; there are three ways to look at relationships; we need to learn when to yield, stop or run with yellow, red and green lights. â€Å"Going deeper† (163) reminds us to think of where we are in life. Deal states â€Å"Single people need that perspective so that won’t overvalue getting married, and married people need that perspective so they won’t lose sight of their purpose in being together.† (165) â€Å"Marital Commitment and Stepfamily Preparation† (181) is the topic of the third section of the book. It is about getting re-engaged and making decisions about getting married. Guidelines are given about what things to look for such as commitment and trust issues, how to be open with the children (young and adult). Some key steps in how to become a blended family are listed. Deal suggests exercises on how to be introduced, recognize loss in your child, planning the wedding and including the children, and telling the ex. This book takes you through the processes of wanting to date again, dating, and choosing the right type of person to date. The next steps are about the engagement, telling families and children you’re getting married and creating a happily blended family. Potential Use for Christian Couples The chapter on â€Å"Yellow Light. Red Light. Green Light.† (141) is a chapter that most pastors need to share with their clients in the premarital counseling. This chapter and the concepts to be taught and learned can save couples from a lot of pain down the road and give additional skills for making a marriage more compatible. â€Å"Yellow lights saying slow down† (143) warm that things are great for now, however when you get married and the honeymoon is over rough times are coming. When you are trying to carefully blend families you need to make sure no one has on â€Å"rose-colored glasses† (145) or is ignoring the bumps in the road that will turn in to mountains later on if not dealt with before the couple gets married. A counselor needs to advise a couple to slow down if â€Å"loneliness or desperation† (146) are detected in the counseling sessions. This could indicate an underlying problem that will come out later in the marriage. The person with one of these disorders may demand that the other person in the relationship try to be their all in all, and no one can be everything to someone. Counselors should consider a postponement of a marriage if one of the clients comes in with any character traits like: â€Å"quick temper, intimidating, anger  reactions, chemical or physical abuse, can’t say no, constantly blaming others, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, problems staying calm, financial problems, disengagement with family, hiding previous relationships, or diagnosed personality disorder.† (147-148) If a person has experienced or is experiencing one of these challenges, this counselor will strongly suggest that it is dealt with before the marriage takes place. One of these problems will cause too much stress for most marriages to overcome. Deal suggests there are red stoplights. If you â€Å"have extreme differences in parenting styles† (151) you need to stop dating. This counselor would agree. Raising children is a very hard job when you agree; however, when you disagree children tend to play one parent off the other causing conflict between the parents. You need to remember you are not only marrying the person, but also the children. Another red light could be the ex-spouse. If he/she causes constant trouble, you will be in constant turmoil in the new marriage and will need to consider canceling your plans to marry. Deal suggests other red flags such as cohabitation. This counselor would agree with Deal that cohabitation leans toward persons â€Å"who have negative attitudes toward marriage, increase their divorce risk by 50%, are less sexually trustworthy, have lower religious commitment, and are tempted to slide into marriage.† (154) Cohabitation is not biblical, in Genesis 2:24 gives us the standard for all marriages and in Matthew 19:5 Jesus tells us marriage is a legal and binding relationship. The â€Å"green light† (159) means everything is good and you can proceed with the dating or marriage plans. In the â€Å"green light† stage you can define your relationship. At this point Deal suggests you can share your relationship with your children. This also is the stage during which it is suggested you take the â€Å"Couple Checkup† (169). There are two advantages to doing it in this stage: first â€Å"it provides you and your partner an objective X ray of your relationship health.† (169) Second â€Å"learning about your weaknesses helps you as a couple target specific ways to improve.† (169) This counselor will encourage couples in the red light zone to take a break and consider not dating any longer. If they are in the yellow light zone this counselor will encourage them to consider looking deeply at what the problems are and working through them before proceeding with the relationship. In the green light zone this counselor will encourage them to be willing to talk about issues when they arise, to be willing to  talk about them, and to work on a compromise. Deal states: â€Å"Confidence calms the heart and reduces anxiety†. (194) This counselor could not agree more, and knowing where you stand in a relationship is the most important element. Solidifying the relationship so both persons know how each other feels and what to expect keeps the green light going. Telling the children if you have children will be important. A plan needs to be made about how to tell them and expect the unexpected. One needs to expect them to be happy and for them to be angry about the decision. Letting the children know what will happen will help them through the fear and anger. Deal does not go into depth about what to do if the families do not want this marriage. What if the families do not like the person you want to marry? This counselor agrees the spouse that was married to the ex ought to tell him/her before the wedding day. Once the wedding day has taken place often times the children are going to be stressed out by this and misbehave. Deal suggests often times when things settle down from the wedding the child parent relationship will work itself out. This is a relationship neither party has had to handle before and it will be new challenges to both the parent and the child. Deal encourages parents to have a united front with the children. (206) If they do not have a â€Å"unified team everything will begin to crumble.† (207) Critique Deal speaks about â€Å"commitment and trust† (187) issues with couples. He explains that marriage is complicated and requires a couple to not be selfish. â€Å"God in his infinite wisdom ask each person to make a covenant that binds them together throughout life,† (187) or â€Å"until death do us part.† (187) Elwell states in the time of Christ a man could â€Å"divorce his wife for the most trivial of reasons† (347) from the â€Å"Hillelite Pharisees.† (347) This would suggest that if you take the side of the Hillelite Pharisees, our no fault divorce laws have been around for centuries. It is a delicate dance to get someone to commit to marriage to you when you are ready to commit to marriage and they will not. Deal gives several ideas: â€Å"Patiently continue dating, wrestle with your impatience, identify any specific concerns, give time for the hesitant person to find resolution, and at some point, the higher desire person will grow weary of waiting.† (188) Deal does later in the book suggest a time line of five years is a reasonable time to wait on  someone. If you have waited for five years and they still have not made a decision but you love them and cannot imagine life without that person do you walk away? Would it not be like a divorce? This counselor would not suggest anyone stay with someone for more than the five years unless they can make a decision to marry or not to marry. Deal speaks about crockpots and blenders in the chapter about â€Å"Preparing for a Good Blend.† The crockpots are those couples who move slowly with low heat,† (208) while the blender couples are those who â€Å"move quickly with high velocity.† (208) Deal states: â€Å"It is far wiser to adopt the crockpot cooking style.† (208) Otherwise slow and study is a much better way to blend a family than trying to quickly trying to force them to be a blended family. In this chapter he gives ideas about how to create stepfamilies. He says: â€Å"Younger children under the age of five may require far less time to soften toward stepparents than those between the ages of ten and fifteen years. Also, on occasion, a stubborn ingredient may resist softening and retain a sour taste. In either case, keep cooking.† This counselor would whole heartedly agree with his wisdom. The younger children are when stepparents arrive into their life, the easier it is to accept t hem. Deal also gives ideas about how to handle situations like: â€Å"getting married, calling a stepfather Daddy, combining holidays and other special-day traditions, and taking pictures as a family.† (209-210) With statistics saying that â€Å"fifty percent of first marriages fail and sixty percent of second marriages fail† (smartmarriages.com) this counselor believes Deal has made great recommendations in his book about how to blend families. Blended families will take work and Deal says that many times in this book. This book is an easy read with thought provoking topics. Some of the topics have a different way of looking at them than traditional thoughts. This book is a must read if you are thinking of remarrying or marrying someone who has been married before. References Deal, R. (2012). Dating and the single parent. Bloomington, MN: Bethany House Publishing. Eller, W. (2001). Evangelical dictionary of theology. 2n ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House. Marano, H. E., Divorced? Don’t even think of remarrying until you read this. www.smartmarriages.com. Accessed November 8, 2014.

Eve’s Speech to the Forbidden Tree in Milton’s Paradise Lost

Eve’s Speech to the Forbidden Tree in Milton’s Paradise Lost In Book IX of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Eve makes a very important and revealing speech to the tree of knowledge. In it, she demonstrates the effect that the forbidden fruit has had on her. Eve’s language becomes as shameful as the nakedness that Adam and Eve would later try to cover up with fig leaves. After eating the forbidden apple, Eve’s speech is riddled with blasphemy, self-exaltation, and egocentrism. The first part of Eve’s speech contains the most blatant blasphemy. In it, she turns the forbidden tree into an idol, or a false god. She promises that â€Å"henceforth [her] early care, / Not without song each morning, and due praise / Shall tend [the tree]† (ln 799-801). The long sounds of the spondees in â€Å"not without song each morning, and due praise† add to the deliberateness of Eve’s blasphemy. The tree replaces God in her eyes, and begins to receive the praise that she had formerly reserved only for God. Besides being blasphemous, this is also ironic. In her foolishness, Eve ends up praising the very thing that will ultimately prove to be her undoing. Eve considers the tree a great gift. However, because of the influence of the serpent, she does not consider it a gift from God. The serpent has caused her to believe that God did not give the tree to Adam and Eve because it was not his to give. Therefore, Eve supposes that God must â€Å"envy what [he] cannot give: / For had the gift been [his], it had not here / Thus grown† (ln 805-7). In other words, she argues that if God had had possession of this tree, he would not have left it where it is. Therefore, according to Eve’s manipulated reasoning, God must not have the knowledge that the tree bestow... ...d â€Å"Adam† in line 831. The last two lines of this speech are very dramatic. Eve has such a great love for Adam that she could endure anything as long as he would be by her side, but she would be nothing without him. However, this creates a paradox. One may ask, if Eve loves Adam as much as she professes to, then why put his life in jeopardy just to make her own suffering more bearable? The answer, of course, goes back to the selfishness that has pervaded her entire speech. These lines stand out because of the spondees at the end of both of them. Eve’s language is drastically altered when she partakes of the forbidden fruit. It becomes permeated with blasphemy, self-praise and selfish words. Works Cited: Milton, John. Paradise Lost. in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, M. H. Abrams, ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1993. 1594-5.

A business letter on expanding into foreign markets Essay

This letter is about my business that wants to expand out of the United States. I hope you will be able to advise us on this step our business wants to take. We hope you have the answers to our questions and thank you for helping us. Internatioanl expansion is one of the srategies wwe want to use in growing our business. There are important issues that you have to consider when expanding to other countries. We have looked at some of these issues. We see that we have to adapt to other countries cultures and traditions. Also we have to consider religous differences in ther countries. For example in some religonds some meats are concidered sacred, which we will have to take into consideration if we want to sell our products in those countries. We also rrealize that we have to make our business acomidate the peolpe of each country. We cant have the same things in each store. Reasearch will have to be done, which will help us know what people prefer in different countries. We think that by moving into different countries it will increase our amount of customers becaususe they will know are name. We will be all over the world and not just in the Uited States. This could make us more appealing to customers because when they come to us they know what they can expect. Customers like that comfortable feeling that we can provide them by expanding into other countries. We would like to sell our products considering people wants and needs. Also considering the prices that fit our customers. We will also learn of our customers wants and needs by having evaluations in our stores each week considering different issues. This will make us aware of what our customers want and should help us satisfy our customers. By listening to the customers opinions we will be able to come up with new types of ideas and goods that we could sell in addition to our coffe and desserts. Also we realize that people like a relaxing atmosphere in a coffe and desert house. we will acomidate this by having soothing music in our stores, books, and magazines that fit the customers of each of the countries we go into.We would like to thank you for taking the time to read this letter. We hope you are able to advise us and some more ideas you have for us expanding our business outside the United States. Also tell us if the issues that we coered in the letter are correct or could be fixed.

Poetry Essay

Understanding and interpreting poetry requires a different method of reading than the method which is generally associated with prose. While a given poem, especially a lyric poem, may be literally read in a matter of minutes, the comprehension of the poem may take a lifetime. This is due to the extraordinary ability of poets to compress meanings and also develop complex and multi-layered associations of language, figurative language, image, rhyme, and even narrative within a very brief literary forms. Contemplating a poem is as much a part of experiencing it as merely reading a poem. In the hands of a talented and inspired poet, the minimal use of words and the seemingly constricted forms offered by poetry are actually platforms to convey thoughts, themes, and emotions that would find no more complete expression even if given the â€Å"larger† platform of a novel, essay, or even memoir. As an example of this multi-tiered expression that is found in good poetry, Anne Sexton’s poem, â€Å"Starry Night† provides a rich demonstration of how poetry conveys multiple meanings and associations within a minimalist form. To begin with, Sexton’s poem â€Å"The Starry Night† is an exercise in ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is a type of poem written about another art-form. Most often, in poetry, it involves painting. When writing a poems inspired by paintings, poets attempt to make language, image, and meter evoke the same emotional or thematic impact which is delivered by the visual techniques and textures of paintings. In â€Å"The Starry Night,†Anne Sexton was inspired not only by Vincent Van Goght’s painting of the same title, but by a letter the artist wrote to his brother, which contained the epigraph for Sexton’s poem: â€Å"That does not keep me from having a terrible need/of— shall I say the word— religion. Then I go/out at night to paint the stars. † By including the quotation form Van Goght above the body of her poem, Sexton accomplishes a clever bit of compression, in fact: explicating the poem’s theme before a word of the poem, proper, has a chance to even be read by the reader! This sly trick is compatible with Van Gogh’s technique in the painting â€Å"The Starry Night† which discards subtlety in favor of grandeur and obscurity in favor of explicit emotional expression. In the painting we see a night sky crowded with swirling clouds, blazing starts with burning halos and a moon which reflects each of the lunar phases in one image. All of these attributes are exaggerated, pulling the viewer into a setting of epic epiphany and emotional release. Van Goght’s sky is alive and engages the viewer relentlessly. The overall initial experience is one of being overwhelmed by the immensity of cosmic nature. Below a set of rolling hill lies a small town. The focal point of the town is the large church- steeple, which presides over the rest of the buildings. This steeple seems to anchor the town and the rest of the scene beneath the sky, suggesting that it is the religious and spiritual dialogue between humanity and the cosmos which is of the most importance, not the town itself. Similarly, Sexton begins her poem, â€Å"The town does not exist† establishing the primacy of a non-linear mode of perception, as well as setting the stage for the eventual, climactic religious epiphany. Van Gogh painted Starry Night while in an Asylum at Saint-Remy in 1889. According to many sources his behavior was erratic during this period of his life. During his youth, Van Gogh had dedicated his life to the church. Many believe that Genesis 37:9: â€Å"And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me† greatly influenced Van Gogh’s â€Å"The Starry Night. † Sexton, too, carefully reserves the numerical symbolism of the painting in her lines: â€Å"The night boils with eleven stars. /Oh starry starry night! This is how/I want to die! † By repeating the adjective â€Å"starry,† Sexton gains the â€Å"crowded† feeling of Van Gogh’s canvas in her stanza. She grasps the â€Å"living sky† element in the following lines: â€Å"It moves. They are all alive. /Even the moon bulges in its orange irons. † The key to Sexton’s masterful ekphrasis seems to lie in her use of compressed diction: â€Å"The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. †This, like Van Gogh’s hurried, thick brush stroked invokes a sense of both urgency and passion. Sexton’s use of the refrain â€Å"This is how I want to die! † encapsulates the theme of Van Gogh’s paining, that of religious ecstacy, by merging the erotic/death urge so common in Elizabethan poetry and here marked by an additional shading of surrealism â€Å"sucked up by that great dragon, to split/from my life with no flag. In so doing, Sexton remains true to her confessional mode, also capturing an element which is perhaps understated in Van Gogh’s original, but present nonetheless, a â€Å"confession† of deep loneliness and alienation, marked by the darker swirls of color on the painting’s peripheries and also by the lone black tree, which Sexton describes as â€Å"a drowned woman† marking for posterity her close identification with the emotional confessional and religious themes of Van Gogh’s painting. Sexton’s poem is a wonderful counterpoint to Van Gogh’s painting, a rich example of the artistic and expressive potential of transposing the themes textures and techniques from one art medium to another.

The Lord of the Rings- The Return of the King essays

The Lord of the Rings- The Return of the King essays The Return of the King leads us to the conclusion of the journey of our Ring Bearer and his former company. There is a constant struggle of good versus evil throughout the novel as our characters attempt to restore peace to the Middle-earth. Fortunately many of these struggles come to prove that good will surpass evil in the end. During the novel other themes arise, such as the struggle for power, story telling, and friendship. I believe the main theme of The Return of the King is the battle between good and evil. The Return of the King has our fellowship divided. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli besieged in a castle as the dark forces approach, with Gandalf resurrected and trying to mount a defense. Whereas Sam and Frodo are separated deep in Saurons land. The quest to defeat Sauron seems hopeless, but with the return of the king, the powers of good shine through, and Aragorn with his armies are able to fight back Sauron and his evil army. Frodo with much help from Sam finally makes to the Crack of Doom. However, the ring has taken too strong of a hold on Frodo and he is unable to cast the ring into the fire. Instead he claims the ring and puts it on; alerting Sauron the ring is near the Crack of Doom. Gollum finds his way into the mountain with Sam and Frodo, and manages to bite off Frodos finger wearing the ring. As Gollum rejoices for the return of his precious, the inevitable force of good causes him to fall into the fire with the ring. Destroying the ring along with Sauron and winning the battle for good. Later the hobbits return to the Shire which has been taken over by Saruman. Once again good defeats evil and the hobbits take back control of the Shire. Wormtongue finally seeing the light kills Saruman. At the end of the novel Gildor, Elrond, Galadriel, Bilbo, Frodo, and Gandalf left on the white ship to the undying lands. Thus ending the Third Age of Middle-earth. Tolkien uses various literary techniq...

Brief On The Code Of Hammurabi Essay

, Research Paper Brief Look at the Code of Hammurabi In his place as King of Babylonia, Hammurabi managed to form the universe # 8217 ; s first codification of Torahs and set up Babylon as the dominant and successful Amorite metropolis of its clip. # 8220 ; Records written on clay tablets show that Hammurabi was a really capable decision maker and a successful warrior. His regulation spanned from 1792 BC to 1750 BC When he became king in 1792, he was still immature, but had already become entrusted with many official responsibilities in his disposal # 8221 ; ( Grolier ) . In the early old ages of his reign, Hammurabi largely participated in traditional activities, such as mending edifices, delving canals, and contending wars. Yet subsequently in his regulation, Hammurabi organized a alone codification of Torahs, the first of its sort, hence doing himself one of the universe # 8217 ; s most influential leaders. Hammurabi was chiefly influential to the universe because of his codification of Torahs. This codification consisted of 282 commissariats, consistently arranged under a assortment of topics. He sorted his Torahs into groups such as household, labour, personal belongings, existent estate, trade, and concern. This was the first clip in history that any Torahs had been categorized into assorted subdivisions. This format of organisation was emulated by civilisations of the hereafter. For illustration, Semitic cultures wining Hammurabi # 8217 ; s regulation used some of the same Torahs that were included in Hammurabi # 8217 ; s codification. Hammurabi # 8217 ; s method of idea is apparent in present twenty-four hours societies, which are influenced by his codification. Modern authoritiess presently create specific Torahs, which are placed into their appropriate household of similar Torahs. Hammurabi had his Torahs recorded upon an eight-foot high black rock memorial. Hammurabi based his codification on rules like, the strong should non wound the weak, and that penalty shou ld suit the offense. As for penalty, â€Å"legal actions were initiated under the codification by written pleadings ; testimony was taken under curse. The codification was terrible in its punishments, ordering â€Å"an oculus for an oculus, a tooth for a tooth† ( Grolier ) . These codifications of Torahs were maintained by raising the authorization of the Gods and the province. Although the penalties were different than those of today, the authorization of the province ( authorities ) is similar. Presently, penalties are issued through the province # 8217 ; s jurisprudence enforcement system, comparable to the manner penalty was determined and enforced in ancient Babylon. In the codification, offenses punishable by decease required a test in forepart of a bench of Judgess. Included in these offenses were: bigamy, incest, snatch, criminal conversation and larceny. There were besides Torahs similar to today. For illustration, a hubby who wished to disassociate his married woman, was required to pay maintenance and child support. By making the universe # 8217 ; s first set of organized Torahs, Hammurabi constituted a theoretical account set of moral codifications for other civilisations to double. # 8220 ; The codification of Hammurabi is believed to hold greatly influenced the development of Near Eastern civilisations for centuries after it was written # 8221 ; ( Britannica ) . Although Hammurabi failed to set up an effectual bureaucratic system himself, his thoughts were successful in set uping Torahs in Babylonia. Since Babylon was the universe # 8217 ; s first city, the big population needed to be bound by a rigorous set of organized civil Torahs. The manner Hammurabi constructed his Torahs is influential to the universe today, because Torahs can be more easy understood by the people. Bibliography # 8220 ; Code of Hammurabi. # 8221 ; Encyclopedia Britannica ( 1989 ) , X, 682. # 8220 ; Hammurabi. # 8221 ; Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia ( 1994 ) . # 8220 ; Hammurabi. # 8221 ; Compton # 8217 ; s Encyclopedia ( 1990 ) , XI, 225.

Final Assignment in Special POP Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Final in Special POP - Assignment Example As a result, they are now in a better position to teach children and emphasize on their roles as educators. Educators acknowledge the role to public education, and how it helps children. Hence, as educators they work on employing strategies that help in guiding and facilitating the support of children towards their desired outcomes for learning. In addition, by recognizing that children have a right to free and appropriate education, the educators are in a better position to know how and why they have to teach (Banta & Palomba, 2014). They also have an easier time when identifying how children’s content for learning is child-initiated. There are main challenges that campus leaders face. Even when the students most campuses as are adults their views always differ. For campus leaders who are new in the faculty, they address any problems that they have without hesitation. Nonetheless, those members who are not new have a problem. For example, in cases where there are cheating scandals such as the one in an El Paso school, the problems outlined might have posed a lot of challenges for those who were in charge. Problems addressed earlier by a faculty member or campus leaders enables them to gain the confidence determined to run schools. Schools with limited availability of resources also tend to differ a lot. For campus leaders, they have to determine whether the teaching styles of teachers get budgeted under the available school funds. Educators who are aware of the budgeted resources in a school are in a better position to detect when there are problems with the education system, such as having students who disappear from classrooms such as the â€Å"Los Desaparecidos† (Fernandez, 2012). In such cases, campus leaders provide the teaching support which is usually in form of grants or equipment. Campus leaders also have the task of empowering the faculty leadership to take a step forward such as when encouraging low performing students. Instead