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OpEd
Easter story shows
Jesus lives for many
Mitch Albom wrote these
words: “Lost love is still
love. It takes a different form,
that’s all. You can't see their
smile or bring them food or
tousle their hair or move
them around on a dance floor.
But when those senses are
weaken, another heightens.
Memory. Memory becomes
your partner. You nurture it.
Vou hold it. You dance with
it."
Today is Easter Sunday
and the events of a Sunday
sunrise 2000 years ago are
celebrated all over the world.
The love demonstrated by
Christ during his life span of
33 years has taken on a dif
ferent form. It is still love,
and it is still believed by bil
lions of people.
We no longer dwell on
how he looked, how he
spoke, how he lived from day
to day. We now think of the
years his reign has length
ened. how his followers have
increased, how his words are
still spoken daily and used
for strength and meaning.
The rest of the story began
on Easter Sunday. With the
visit to the tomb Mary
Magdalene and the other
Mary found that the body of
Christ was missing. Os
course, their first reaction
was the body had been stolen.
This was a reasonable
assumption because dead
people do not come back to
life. Or do they?
The appearance of an
angel must have startled the
women. The guards were
“like dead men". The women
probably felt fear as they
heard the words: ‘-He is not
here, he has risen like he
said. Come and see the place
Ethics & Reli
National study shows programs
helping to lower divorce rate
For 30 years there has been
one divorce for every two mar
riages in America. This 50 per
cent divorce rate has appeared
to be granite that could not be
chipped.
However, a major new study
released Monday provides evi
dence from 114 cities that cler
gy who make a public pledge to
marital reforms in a
"Community Marriage Policy"
can cut the divorce rate.
Over seven years divorces fell
17.5 percent on average, or
double the 9.4 percent decline
of similar cities, according to
Dr. Stan Weed, president of the
Institute for Research and
Evaluation, which conducted
the two-year study.
In each city Catholic and
Protestant clergy agreed to
adopt reforms aimed at making
marriage a priority in their
churches to reduce the divorce
rate.
Most important, they all
began demanding rigorous mar
riage preparation of at least four
months in which couples are
required to take a premarital
inventory to assess their rela
tionship objectively, and meet
with a mentor couple to talk
through 150+ issues it surfaces
and to learn skills to resolve
conflict.
Clergy also signed a pledge
to enrich existing marriages and
train couples whose marriages
once nearly failed, to mentor
those in current crisis.
“The results are important,
not because of their magnitude,
which is modest, but because
there are any results at all,”
Weed told the National Press
Club. “The deck was stacked
against finding a program
effect. Community Marriage
Policies depend on local volun
teers of varying degrees of
motivation, commitment and
ability and with high turnover.
Local pastors change frequent
ly. There’s wide variation in
program implementation.
“The proportion of signed
< * Julianne
Boling
where he lay.”
The story of that Easter
has captured the imagination
of generations. It has taken
on a different form for many
people. It has changed lives,
made strong men weep, and
has been declared the truth
for believers worldwide. The
love demonstrated by follow
ers of the man Jesus has no
end.
We have made a national
holiday of the events of Easter
week. Businesses close on
Good Friday and merchandis
ers invest billions of dollars in
advertisements enticing us to
buy and join the Easter parade.
Churches are filled to capacity
as once a year participants try
to absorb enough meaning
from one service to last until
the next year.
In the Fourth Lesson of
Mitch Albom’s book “the five
people you meet in heaven",
h(j wrote of the man who met
his wife in heaven. Eddie said:
"You died and you lost every
thing. And I lost everything."
The love of his life took his
hands as she replied:
"No. you didn't. 1 was right
here. You loved me anyway."
This is the story of Easter.
Everything was not lost. The
Christ is still here in the
thoughts of billions of people.
For these billions, life has no
end. Love doesn't.
Cumming resident Juli
anne Boling's column ap
pears each Sunday.
ion
Mike *,*■*•*’
congregations is often small
and those numbers are embed
ded in the larger county con
text.
For example, if you have a
county with 200 congregations
and 20 of them get together to
do this, you are only affecting a
small percentage of the total
county population. But our data
is at the county level. So that
means those 20 congregations
have to have a whopping effect
to influence that county statis
tic.
“The serious training of
mentor couples began in 1998.
This program is relatively new.
Then the local community
group operated this on a shoe
string. Under these conditions,
finding a significant program
effect is actually pretty surpris
ing," Weed said with a smile.
He estimated that in the 114
cities “about 31,000 divorces
were averted, and that is a con
servative estimate. It is not at all
unreasonable to say there were
50,000.”
Since the U.S. divorce rate
is declining slightly. Weed com
pared Community Marriage
Policy (CMP) cities with con
trol cities in each state without
the intervention. Over seven
years, their divorce rates fell 9.4
percent while CMP cities
pushed their rates down 17.5
percent. But that’s only an aver
age. Actually nearly half of the
CMPs did not do better than
control cities.
Therefore, the results of
other cities had to be major to
have a net decline of almost
one-fifth.
“This is the first national
study which has shown us with
hard evidence that these pro
grams are having the desired
Will Kerry repeat mistakes of ’88?
WASHINGTON The
1988 campaign of Michael
Dukakis is still studied today
as an example of how not to
run a presidential campaign.
Dukakis was considered
cold and aloof, unwilling to
listen to advice, and unable to
convincingly portray himself
as a patriotic American and
not just a far left-winger.
Some see certain parallels
between the Dukakis cam
paign of 1988 and the John
Kerry campaign of 2004. The
White House sure does.
But Kerry has a number of
advantages over Dukakis,
including the ability to study
where Dukakis went wrong.
Which is one reason it is so
interesting that Kerry quietly
appointed John Sasso to be
general election chairman of
the Democratic National
Committee last week.
Sasso ran the Dukakis
campaign, got bounced for
leaking damaging information
about a rival to the press in
1987 and then returned to the
campaign in 1988 after the
Democratic convention.
But a few months after the
Dukakis defeat. Sasso made
an extraordinary and explosive
speech in Boston, one that
may have helped shape the
future of the Democratic
Party.
Sasso came up with five
reasons for the Dukakis loss.
Most are still very instructive.
"First," Sasso said, "we did
not, to my mind, properly or
convincingly, make the case
for change.
"Second, it is politically
dangerous to take for granted
that voters will automatically
assume the Democratic candi
date holds dear the country's
basic values: God. patriotism,
family, freedom.
" Third, the Republicans
routinely field a squad of
political professionals, most of
them now with years of White
House and presidential cam
paign experience, (while)
Democrats somehow field a
squad of smart but insurgent
effect of strengthening marriage
and lowering the divorce rate,"
said David Blankenhom of the
Institute for American Values,
which hosted the press confer
ence.
Dr. Wade Horn, Assistant
Secretary of Health & Human
Services, added, “One criti
cism of the President’s
Healthy Marriage Initiative is
that there is no evidence that
this will actually work. This
study goes a long way to
address this question ...The
fact that they found effect for
a program that had variable
implementation is nothing
short of extraordinary.
“It is therefore disappoint
ing that the Senate failed to
pass welfare reform authoriza
tion last week. The president’s
Healthy Marriage Initiative is
largely attached to that bill. It is
not quite dead, but it is certainly
on life support.
"But the very good news is
that not all good ideas depend
on federal funding. Although
this evaluation was funded with
federal dollars, none of the
work of Marriage Savers in
implementing Community
Marriage Policies has been
funded by the federal govern
ment. And it has not just been
successful in one or two com
munities, but has been planted
in over 180 communities. So I
am very encouraged by this
work and this evaluation.”
Byway of disclosure, this
study was also heartening news
for my wife and me who co
chair Marriage Savers and
helped clergy create Com
munity Marriage Policies
beginning in 1986.
Diane Sollee, director of
Smart Marriages, a coalition of
marriage educators, concluded,
*‘l hope now that the leaders of
the main faith-based denomina
tions will put their weight
behind this."
Michael McManus is a
nationally syndicated colum
nist.
11 ' '
v jTr Roger
Simon
players, who,do not fully
understand whole areas of the
country and operate far more
narrowly.
"Fourth, the media still
have not figured out how to
deal effectively with negative
advertising."
Sasso's fifth reason, how
ever, was the shocker. In 1988,
Jesse Jackson had garnered
about 7 million votes in the
primaries and caucuses, while
Dukakis had gotten about 9
million. Jackson insisted this
earned him the right to be
Dukakis' vice presidential run
ning mate, and he threatened
to launch a floor fight at the
convention if he were not
selected.
Though Jackson had no
realistic hope for the vice
presidential slot, Dukakis had
to spend a great deal of time
both publicly and privately
soothing Jackson before, dur
ing and after the convention.
To Sasso, this helped doom
the Dukakis campaign.
"If the presidential candi-
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FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS - 3und»y, April 11,2004 -
date disagrees with the party's
most influential black leader,
the candidate must, in my
view, break out of his political
fright and disagree," Sasso
said in his speech. "In some
ways, voters seem to judge the
strength and skill and charac
ter of the Democratic candi
date on how effectively he
gets along with or copes with
Jackson. It becomes an unend
ing litmus test."
These were daring words
back then, and some credit
Sasso with beginning the
Democratic Party's "liberation"
from Jackson's influence.
(Others saw it as a slap in the
face to the man who had proba
bly registered more Democratic
voters than anyone in history.)
Afterward, Sasso outlined
the ongoing, post-convention
conflict between Dukakis and
Jackson. It remains an instruc
tive disagreement: "Jackson
believed Dukakis was reaching
way too far to attract the so
called Reagan Democrats, tra
ditional Democrats who in the
past couple of elections had
voted in large numbers
Republican. He was convinced
we could not lure them back.
Instead, he wanted us to con
centrate on constituencies who
had far more consistently and
faithfully voted Democratic:
blacks, Hispanics and those
PAGE 19A
under economic stress. He
warned us we were slighting
these constituencies, taking
them for granted. We held a dif-'
ferent view. We felt it was vital
to reach out and broaden that
base. This was an ongoing
debate."
It is a debate that is still
ongoing. But what about the
importance of the candidate
himself and his personality?
Didn't that have a big role to
play?
"It is certainly true that
Dukakis is a man who holds his
emotions closely," Sasso said.
"It is true that supporters inside
the campaign and out hoped the
candidate would periodically
let his feelings fly. But that was
not our man, and that was not
our campaign. The fact that
Michael Dukakis always
refused advice to be something
he was not, to me, tells a lot
about him."
Yeah, it tells us that he lost.
Does the Dukakis cam
paign of 1988 hold any les
sons for today? Plenty.
But recognizing the mis
takes of the past doesn't
always mean you will learn
from them. Sometimes, it just
means you will repeat them.
Roger Simon is a national
ly syndicated columnist. His e
mail address is Writeßoger
@ aol.com.