Cindy and I recently watched My Life in Ruins with Nia Vardalos.  It’s a fun movie, very cautiously recommended, due to some unfortunate objectionable content.  Richard Dreyfus plays a supporting role as a widower on his first vacation after losing his wife.  His portrayal of a curmudgeon gamely trying to move on while remembering his lost love is heart wrenching. 
 
His performance ties in with something about which I have a burr under my saddle.  It’s something I’ve been seeing culturally for a while.  Others I’ve talked to have noticed it for an even longer period.  While his portrayal shows a man bravely, if not chastely, grieving his wife, reality is apparently different.  I’ve seen, and heard of, several men, mostly pastors, remarrying alarmingly soon after the death of their spouse. 
 
I know that with all of 4 months of marriage I probably “speak as a fool”, but generally traditions don’t.  It was once a long held standard that a deceased spouse, regardless of gender, deserved at least a year of respectful remembrance before the remaining spouse moved on.  A survey of online advice on the topic shows that the one year rule is not readily followed anymore.  One more example of the deteroration of our culture.
 
In recent years I have seen more than one widowed pastor remarry within three months to a woman twenty to thirty years his junior.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a widowed minister remarrying.  But I think the scriptural standard that a pastor be blameless is clearly not met when a pastor remarries within 6 months, particularly when it's to a woman his children’s age.  Pastors don’t just teach, they model.  They model at all stages of life.  And this is a poor model of the respect owed to a godly wife, as well as a poor model of living with grief and godliness with contentment.
 
After just four months I can’t imagine taking a vacation without my wife as Dreyfus does in the movie.  I don’t think I could get out of bed or even remember to breathe.  I wouldn't know day from night.  I have to say these pastors that remarry within a trimester truly confound me.
 
I wonder how these ministers, with their newfound trophy wife, can maintain a straight face when exhorting young people that “those who marry in haste repent in leisure.”  How much credibility do they have in rebuking men who want to leave their living wife for a younger woman (or do they just urge them to be patient)?  How does their new wife counsel the widows in the church?
 
I sympathize for their grief.  I wish them happiness in their new life. 
 
And I’ve lost all respect for their ministry.

I have not been what anyone would call an American Idol fan. But I started watching it last season with my fiancée and her family. Ok, I did like to watch the auditions before that. Who doesn’t like to watch a good slow-motion train-wreck now and then (of the metaphorical variety that is)?

I also enjoy seeing the occasional truly surprising standout like the roughneck who auditioned in Phoenix this year or the welder who sang "Ain’t No Sunshine". But something is clearly wrong when an obviously mediocre singer can get through by wearing a bikini or begging as did the contestant who argued that his mother had flown out from Florida.

There were singers who were rejected who were clearly better than those two singers. And many who were arguably just as good. Why should Beggar Boy get through when Cheerleader Guy didn’t? Why should Bikini Girl get through when the cute little cowgirl from back east couldn’t get through with her giant book of original songs and endearing naïveté?

All I’m saying is the system is flawed and needs to be made more fair, or at the very least less arbitrary. No mulligans, no second songs, no vote changing, and instant disqualification for attempts to subvert the process through manipulative wardrobe choices or outright begging. If the judges’ discretion is going to be allowed, then it should be restricted to legitimate professional discretion, rather than the obvious motivation behind Randy and Simon voting for Bikini Girl.