Reading, 'Riting, & 'Rithmatic Rationale

Why should you take time to read this blog?

What is the purpose of these three words above? That is a great question; a simple but important question. Why not four or five? Why these particular words? These are all questions to be answered in future writings.

A wise man once said “keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.” Do you find this a strange or extenuating way of thinking? Maybe abstract or odd?

Stay with me, because getting down to the basic issues of life takes an abstract if not a deeply spiritual view, and maybe a keen sense of the obvious.

Are you confused yet?

Do you feel like I am leading you over a dangerous cliff of hieroglyphics and word games? Please stick with me because the complexities of life are not going away, and not figuring them out might cause you to miss something important.

Do we want to be a generation that is left behind? Maybe reading this will help you sort through basic and important issues you face.

I hope so, because I am desperately trying to figure them out myself.

The intention of this blog is to help you be able to process through “reading” (or deciphering) what is really important. The next step is “‘riting” because we want to help each other get it right. And for these first two “R’s” you need the “rithmetic”.

Is that easier to grasp?

I can tell your brow is furrowed and you are genuinely confused, or the light is coming on and you are beginning to get it. Remember that Rome was not built in a day, and your understanding of the “sense making” things in life will not be grasped in a day either. But that's where “righting” comes in. We get the combination and we get the door open and see what’s really inside this thing called “life”.

So let’s dive in….

Why am I here? What am I doing? Where am I going?

These are all good questions to ask yourself. My purpose for this blog is to invite you on a journey with me; a journey where we learn how the three “R’s” will affect our interpretation of life.

Here at the The Little Stone Cottage for the past 13 years, we have been in the business of giving couples a romantic getaway where they can come apart as a couple before their relationship comes apart.

We need to think through relationships and realize that sometimes we really do need to get alone as couples. To have moments with “just us” where we can regroup. To figure out the right interpretation for us as individuals, and especially as a couple.

But what is the right course of action (or inaction) in this world of many voices and opportunities? A world full of media, books, blogs, and advice clamors for our attention.

Where is really good information on any given item found, and how do we find it?

Not sure?

Well, maybe that is why you are reading this. On this blog we want to study relationships and how we can better understand these many questions. There are times when we wonder, “What is the most important thing that I should pursue right now?”

So if you want to join me in studying “reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic,” you are at the right place.

And are you really interested in doing the thinking, planning, and figuring with the most important person on this earth to you: your spouse?

If you are, The Little Stone Cottage is a romantic getaway that you can use to do just that. Life, and the worst things it can dish out to us, are always better if you think through it and process it with your spouse.

Here at the Little Stone Cottage we say the three Rs are

“Relax, Renew, and Rejuvanate”

So how can you experience these words at The Little Stone Cottage?

Relax: Read and ponder together how to do life better with the one person on earth that you chose to live with until you die; the person that you will be buried beside at the end of life.

Renew: Let the daily routines and extreme busyness behind for a few days and rest. Take a birds-eye view of what really matters to you as a couple. How can you correct your wrongs together?

Rejuvenate: How do you make sense of it all? As a couple, acknowledge that you have veered off course, and ask how you can come back together. A powerful catalyst in relationships is knowing where you have wandered off track and coming back together.

Just getting back on the same page emotionally has a powerfully relaxing, a wonderfully renewing, and a comfortably rejuvenating effect on any marriage, especially those built on the foundation of truth.

You have to relax before you can renew, and these two will help bring order to the chaos of life. From here you will be more in the frame of mind to handle the complex things that life brings into your relationship, and that's real rejuvenation.

At The Little Stone Cottage, that’s our interpretation of the three “R’s”, and what we have encouraged to happen at our romantic getaway for the past 13 years.

- Roman Stoltzfoos