Today's Question: Halal
As reported recently by Mlive, the federal government is now required to help food pantries supply specialty foods to the less fortunate and homeless. Of special note was the requirement for food pantries and shelters to provide meals to Muslims prepared according to Halal standards.
According to Wikipedia, Halal foods are foods that Muslims are allowed to eat or drink under Islamic Shariʻah. The criteria specifies both what foods are allowed, and how the food must be prepared. The foods addressed are mostly types of meat and animal tissue.
Life Scripts come in all descriptions: The self-conscious man who can never relax, the worrier who is only one mistake from depression, the woman repetitively attracted to abusers, the addict who can’t quite kick the habit, the man or woman who sabotages their own prosperity, those who always manage to sabotage themselves with anger. These are just a sample of the “script characters” people tend to play their whole lifetimes.
The disappointed look on her face conveyed everything her father needed to know—if only he’d look. But he was too busy fiddling with his phone to witness her growth on the basketball court. She was hoping for encouragement, pleading with her eyes for him to notice her.
A multigenerational household is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as three or more generations living together. These types of living arrangements have been common in the Asian and Hispanic cultures, but they have not been typical in American households. According to the Census, only about 4% or 4.2 million American households in the past were multigenerational. That’s changing! Current Census results show that between the years of 1990 and 2000, multigenerational households in the United States grew by 38%. In 65% of multigenerational families, the children and grandchildren were living with a grandparent and in one-third of the cases, the parents lived with their children.
Some time ago, around this season of the year, a friend named Dennis dared me to take a crack at a certain sort of New Year’s Resolution. Dennis’s goal for the year was to pick a single word, just one, and let that word come alive in his life over a twelve-month period. His challenge for me was to do the same thing, to try out a word of my own.
There’s almost a popping noise in my head as circuits become overloaded. My eyes glaze over from wires crossing at a rapid pace because of the information being filtered to my brain. At the same time, bright colors awaken my senses and get my heart pumping. Words sear my soul and create a longing that wasn’t there just minutes before.
Remember when former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, announced they were separating after 25 years of marriage. At the time of the announcement there was no mention of any particular reason, and it was just sad to see them give up. Schwarzenegger had just left the Governor’s office four months earlier and the couple had recently celebrated a silver anniversary. About a week after the separation, the news media revealed that Schwarzenegger had admitted to an extra-marital affair that resulted in the birth of a child. Apparently the woman was on staff at the Governor’s home and the incident and birth had occurred more than 10 years earlier. Now the separation was starting to make some sense. A year later Schwarzenegger released a book about the whole ordeal making his family essentially live through it all over again.
Recently I was on the phone with a gentleman from another state, and he asked me the question, “Dan, why is it so hard to meet the basic needs of my wife?” The first thing I thought was that this gentleman is not alone! We all have a tendency to skip the basic things we should do to keep our spouse feeling loved and cherished. Why? That’s easy to answer but not always easy to solve. Over a period of time, spouses take each other for granted.
“My mother used to sing that song with me when I was a little girl!”
It should come as no surprise that Hollywood has seen the light and rediscovered the Bible; not that they’ve become religious in the spiritual sense. The light they see is the unprecedented success of well-made, theologically sound movies like The Bible miniseries, produced by husband and wife team, Mark Burnett (The Voice, The Apprentice, Survivor, Shark Tank) and Roma Downey (Touched by an Angel)
Is it okay to look? When you are married, is it okay for you to glance or admire the beauty of another person of the opposite sex? It’s an interesting question and one that I’m not going to answer for you, but rather have you decide once you consider the possible implications of that action.
