You Are Hereby Sentenced to Marriage Prison
"It may sound like a nightmare," reports Stephen McGrath of BBC Travel, 'but records show that this form of marriage counselling in Transylvania was rather effective."
He is speaking of the "marriage prison" housed within the walls of the 15th Century church in the heart of the "frozen in time" Transilvanian village of Biertan.
Inside the church grounds, along one of its fortification walls, is a small building with a room inside barely larger than a pantry. For 300 years, couples whose marriages were on the rocks would find themselves here, locked away for up to six weeks by the local bishop in hope that they would iron out their problems and avert a divorce. ...
The room has low ceilings and thick walls, and is sparsely equipped with a [single] table and [single] chair, a storage chest and a traditional Saxon bed that looks small enough to belong to a child. As couples attempted to repair their marriages inside this tiny space, everything had to be shared, from a single pillow and blanket to the lone table setting.
The prison room is today nothing more than a museum. But it remains, nonetheless, a testament to the many success stories fought for (now doubt!) and won within its walls.
“Thanks to this blessed building, in the 300 years that Biertan had the bishop’s seat we only had one divorce,” said Ulf Ziegler, Biertan’s current priest.
You can either choose to see your troubled marriage as a prison within which you feel trapped and seek to escape, or you can choose to "sentence" yourselves to the experiment of "marriage prison" — a spiritual place of commitment to shared experience and oneness, a place where "everything [has] to be shared," as God has intended.
Within the walls of that theoretical prison, you just might find an intimacy and a oneness that sets you free to experience all that marriage can be.
"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24, ESV, cf. Matthew 19:2-9).
The Law of Love
Thomas Burrows, with the Daily Mail, reports:
The highest court in Austria has said a resident cannot smoke on his balcony or with the windows open during set hours as it is disturbing his neighbor’s sleep ...
A university professor, living in the Austrian capital, had filed the case after complaining about the smell coming from the flat below.
The court heard how the resident below enjoyed a cigar on his balcony during the summer, typically between midnight and 2am.
In the winter, he tended to smoke with the windows open in his apartment.
... The country's highest court said the resident cannot smoke outside or with the windows open between 10pm and 6am.
In the summer, he is also prohibited from smoking during 'eating times' - between 8am and 10am, midday and 3pm, and 6pm and 8pm.
The decision could have far-reaching effects on the country.
It’s amazing that a single dispute between neighbors could find no solution until it reached the highest court in the land. Shouldn’t two people be able to work something like this out? And even if they need help from an authoritative third party, should an entire nation be forced to comply to a new set of laws because two people refused to accommodate one another?
There is no end to the need for new laws when the hearts involved are unyielding and selfish. By contrast, the end of the law is the love of Christ. When God’s love is the guiding principle, there is no need for any other principle. Laws aimed at enforcing compliance over such trivial disputes become unnecessary. It’s God’s love, not mans laws, that brings peace.
“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:14).
The Prize of His Peace
FOX NEWS provides the following report:
Zimbabwe's controversial president Robert Mugabe was awarded China's alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize Thursday for what the prize committee called his inspired national leadership and service to pan-Africanism.
The 91-year-old Mugabe is the latest in a series of critics of the West who have received the Confucius Peace Prize.
Under his rule, the government pushed a plan to acquire large parcels of land, many from white owners, to give to black farmers. When owners challenged the move in 2002, Mugabe reportedly called them "greedy, greedy colonials."
After fighting in a guerrilla war in the 1970s, Mugabe was elected president in 1980. He has been in power for 35 years with no clear successor.
Critics say he cracked down on opposition groups, sending many of their leaders to jail.
The prize committee defended its decision, saying Mugabe has "overcome difficulties of all kinds and has strongly committed himself to constructing his nation's political and economic order, while strongly supporting pan-Africanism and African independence."
The Confucius Peace Prize was first awarded in 2010, an angry response from Beijing over the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Other recipients include former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Russian President Vladimir Putin. None has traveled to claim the prize in person.
Despite the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world continues to be divided along ideological lines. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way we award peace prizes. Clearly, the Confucius Peace Prize represents one ideology's response to another. While such awards are supposed to promote peace, isn’t this really just another form of war, albeit ideological?
Thankfully, God offers us something better than the world's version of a “peace prize.” He offers us "the prize of His peace." It’s a prize offered to everyone—no committees, no nominations, or politics involved. And rather than furthering the divide, it results in complete and eternal reconciliation between God and man, forming the basis of all other peace.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid“ (John 14:27).