Fact of the matter is, I have been guilty of blog-neglect. I started this post way earlier this week and am only just now getting around to finishing it up.
I've been thinking a lot about the radio biz the past few days (gee I wonder why?) Not to mention chit-chatting with a lot of folks about it. Well, last night I was talking to friend Marshall over in Seattle. Mentioned my recent radio gig. Talk turned to Delilah, being as she hails from the Seattle area these days. I'm sure you know who Delilah is. She of the incredibly gorgeous smoky voice coming out over your airwaves late at night. She of the cheesiest, sappiest songs that you have ever heard in your entire life. She of the big cryfest of the airwaves. If you DON'T know who Delilah is, busy yourself over at the thoughtfully provided linkage and then come right on back so you have everything here in context.
I want to say right up front that I admire Delilah's radio professionalism. She has one of the most awesome female voices that I have ever heard on the air. I think it best that before I state what I find to be most troubling, that I make it abundantly clear that I am not just ripping on her because, oh, maybe I am jealous or something. Long before it was even on my radar screen that I might want to go back to radio some day, the whole concept behind Delilah's show sent red flags going off left and right for me.
I'm going to ignore the fact that I dislike the genre of music that she plays. I'm sure a lot of people don't like the same music that I like. We're all different. My husband has appalling taste in music, but I don't hold it against him. I don't think he holds it against me that he just wants to run for the hills when I turn on my particular favorites, either. Not too much, anyway. (I hope.) Thank the good Lord for headphones.
No, what I find to be troublesome is the nature of the calls she takes and the advice that she dispenses, particularly that surrounding male/female relationships. I don't have a problem with someone who is not a trained counselor giving out relational advice; I am, in fact a huge fan of graduates of the school of life passing along their wisdom for the edification of the rest of us. A lot of times, said wisdom far surpasses anything shared by the professionals in the white lab coats. There are very few shrinks out there who have a clue. So if the non-shrinks amongst us have learned from their mistakes; please do toss your hard-earned lessons into the collective knowledge pool. We can all help each other.
Here's the thing with Delilah, though. She is VERY open about her Christian faith. Good for her; I applaud her for not hiding what God has done in some quarters of her life. BUT...when one makes one's faith known in the public marketplace, one needs to be very careful that what they are sharing actually DOES reflect Christian teaching as much as possible. What I am specifically referring to here is a biblical definition of what constitutes love. Much of Delilah's show revolves around "love" and heartbreak and romance. Herein the appeal, especially for those clinging not to a biblical definition of "love", but to a worldly one.
My understanding of "love" is best defined by 1 Corinthians 13. Even though I have linked to this verse in fuller form, I would like to quote it again here, just for the sake of emphasis:
"Love is patient and kind.
It does not envy or boast;
is not proud, rude or self-seeking.
Love is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs.
It does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails!
...First Corinthians Thirteen
I happened to find this particular rendition to cut and paste on the site of an artist who does calligraphic plaques with Bible verses on them. Here is the artist's commentary on this verse; I find it to be rather relevant to the particular discussion here:
"We tend to think of love as an emotion, as in "I really, really like you!" However, God's kind of love is more of a choice to seek the benefit of another. Emotions come and go, we fall in and out of love, but we can always choose to love another person."
I realize that one is treading onto very shaky ground when one says anything about the private lives of those who proclaim their Christianity publicly. I think my attitude would be that of "none of us are perfect" when it comes to Delilah IF her show didn't revolve so heavily around love-lorn people all looking to her to provide some kind of beacon in their relational darkness. The problem is not that this woman is divorced. The problem is her own publicly stated reason for the end of her most recent marriage. Rather than just link you on over to a long article in People mag (here in its entirety if you do want to read it for context), I will quote what I find to be most pertinent:
"When her show went national in '96, she returned to Seattle, where Ortega became a stay- at-home dad to their then-six children—including two brothers and a sister adopted from two different foster homes. The hectic ménage strained their marriage. The couple separated in August 2001 and divorced this month. "I had been a parent for many years," says Delilah, who this year took in a foster child and adopted a toddler. "I was used to paying mortgages and going to PTA meetings. I thought he'd catch up, but after nine years he didn't." The split was less than amicable. "Delilah and I exchange information about picking up and dropping off the kids," Ortega says. "But communication beyond that just isn't possible right now." "
Let me state up front that I know that there ARE some very valid reasons for divorce: cases of horrible abuse, adultery and unrelenting addiction especially. But unless there is more to the story (and I doubt that there is, because she is very upfront about another marriage in which there WERE these kinds of serious issues), just not being able to mold himself to his wife's predetermined ideas of how things should be doesn't qualify in my mind as a valid reason for a Christian to divorce. The very definition of "love" quoted in 1 Corinthians 13 above would contradict that. It is the world that tells us that "love" is desiring another person's presence in your life because they "make you happy", often by doing things the way you would like them to be done. Jesus, on the other hand, is very quick to point out that it is often having to let go of "our" way of doing things and submit ourselves to one another and to Him. Ideally this is a two-way street, but I see nothing in scripture that says that if the other person fails to do this then one is entitled to write the marriage off as a loss and move onto someone else more likely to fulfill what we perceive to "need" from another person. This is, I might add, something that we, as mere mortals, can only achieve through submitting our own wills to God first and allowing Him to fully inhabit every inch of our lives.
The largely feelings based, sympathy laden approach that Delilah has with her callers mirrors her own personal life. All that sympathy and kleenex is more enabling than truly helping these people to find what they appear to desire most: a lifelong, stable union.
Delilah's approach is the antithesis of Dr. Laura. I have said in here before that I don't think Dr. Laura's approach is quite right: all truth, no grace, zero personal humility and transparency. But Delilah's approach creates different issues. Because of her own undealt with personal issues, she inadvertently helps her listeners to adopt a relational worldview that is anything but biblical. Love may have its moments of sappiness and heart rending emotion, but it also has its fair share of anger and compromise and less-than-perfect-fairy-tale moments. It involves accepting a real flesh and blood human being who has personal traits that don't quite live up to our predetermined ideals. Such as being able to "get with the program" of running a rather large household while the other party is out pursuing their dreams. Too bad, so sad; sorry you just don't measure up. I just don't see any justification for this anywhere. I wouldn't feel like the recipient of much "love" if my spouse gave me the big sayonara simply because I have a much lower tolerance for juggling multiple activities than he does.
Let me be direct here: from her own stated words, it sounds like Delilah put everything BUT her husband in the number one spot of her life. Her children and her job both appear to rate a much, much higher priority than the man in her life, in spite of all the romance and love talk that one associates with her. This is patently unbiblical. Please do NOT take this as some tirade against Christian women, especially those with children, being employed outside the home. I personally think that scripture is fuzzier on the specifics of this than some would lead one to believe. All outside employment is not the same; it really is a case by case sort of thing in my eyes. What scripture IS crystal clear about though, is the priorities that should be in place. Not just surrounding work, but also the children in a marriage. A lot of women will do ANYTHING for their children. Their husbands, though, are really just satellites that exist only to make all of this family life possible, not as human beings in their own right who need to be loved just for themselves. I say this as someone who has been down this path myself. I am very, very grateful that I finally turned this around. It took a number of years (not months; years) to undo the damage that I had done by prioritizing my kid over my husband.
Delilah's dedication to her children is legendary. It epitomizes the love described in 1 Corinthians 13. Unfortunately, the love for at least her last husband appears to follow a more worldly model; that being "I'll love you as long as you make me happy and fulfill my needs".
Her advice to her callers echoes this theme that there is a man out there who will behave not like a fallible human, but rather like the hero in an idealized romance story.
Her faith gives a credibility to this unrealistic slant that makes it even more seductive to the right pair of ears.
It is a lie that a long lasting union between mom and dad is nowhere near as necessary as some nebulous "good parenting". What good is gained if in her effort to be supermom, a woman's efforts divide the house, and the children grow up believing that marriages are tenuous at best and something not to invest in too heavily, lest you be devastated when they inevitably end??? The lack of tolerance for individual weaknesses modeled to them is definitely something that will go on to affect their own adult relationships. Sad, but true that as a general rule, the success of the parents marriage will set the stage for the next generation.
Love is about perseverance and sacrifice and struggling to understand things from another person's point of view far, far more than it is about the sentiments usually expressed in most love songs (or romance novels and chick flicks too, for that matter...). That these sentiments are out there in entertainment is one thing. To have them reinforced by the advising of real life situations served up alongside them is quite another.
I do sincerely hope that I don't come across as too harsh. Having been down the path of discerning what it takes to make a family tick, I figure I need all of the help that I can get. As long as it's the truth.
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