Sunny Days in Heaven
Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven


Friday, December 30, 2005  

Dennis Prager shocks his listeners

Dennis Prager, the radio talk show personality, is getting divorced after seventeen years of marriage. It is his second marriage. There are children involved. As one who has been a great inspiration and model to others, Prager’s situation comes as something of a shock to his listeners and fans, but it is very often the case that the physician cannot heal himself: the marriage counselor who cannot save his own marriage, the pastor who cannot inspire his child, and so forth.

When I was a younger Catholic, I would have found moral fault with Dennis because I wholeheartedly embraced the Church’s teaching on divorce, and the verse from Malachi that God hates divorce.

Dennis often says that it is better for a person to have married and divorced then never to have married at all. There is wisdom in that. Dennis is also Jewish and has a different perspective on marriage than a Catholic will have. He has also said that even though God hates divorce, he doesn’t say don’t do it. I think that is a trifle facile, though.

I cannot presume to determine how much pain is too much or bearable for another person. I think that in the course of my life I have developed a greater tolerance, perhaps, for emotional suffering than others. I can only say this because other people have suggested it to me; and I have noticed that a great many people seem to reach their limit before I have in similar circumstances.

One of the things that I have learned is if you endure to your limit and hang on, the suffering often resolves itself to the extent that you make the best of a sad situation.

I think there has to be a certain amount of intransigence on someone’s part to destroy a marriage, and what can be done when that happens? I don’t quite understand Dennis when he insists that his wife and he are suffering a tragedy, that they are both good people, and making it seem that no one is to blame.

I’m not about pointing fingers here, but if these two people have as much affection and respect for each other as Dennis reports, it’s difficult to understand how they have reached such an impasse. It’s none of my business, of course, and speculation would be odious as to the causes of this dissolution. I am simply trying to maintain the same level of respect for Dennis as I had before. It’s hard to believe that someone as wise, kind, sincere, intelligent, understanding, and compassionate as Dennis Prager needs to end his marriage.

But I will still listen to his program because no matter what, the man speaks truth and brings a kind of joy to his work.

posted by Mark Butterworth | 11:09 AM |

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