Years ago someone came up with this definition of an optimist. "An optimist is a person who believes that he's just now getting his feet on the ground when his shoes wear out." Recently we heard someone talking about the fortunes or should we say "misfortunes," of the Dallas Cowboys. The diehard Cowboy fan said, "Things are looking up. When you're this far down, that's the only way they can look." Clichés and clever quotes are good for a chuckle, but in all seriousness, attitude has so much to do with our ability to bounce back from negative circumstances.

We've been thinking about that quite a lot over the past few days. The events of September 11 generated an enormous amount of sadness for us. We can't remember being so sad over such a long period of time. Gradually we have come to see that it's not helpful to reinforce our sadness. We think it imperative that we rid ourselves of a mindset of hopelessness. If we think there is no way out of international turmoil, things will never get better. It works that way in families too. If we dwell on the problems of our families, our family problems aren't likely to get better. All of that led us to write down some of our thoughts about feeling bad. We hope you find them helpful Norman and Ann

We can't remember if it was Lucy or Linus who said it, but we remember what was said. Charles Schulz, creator of the famous "Peanuts" comic strip, wrote these words in the bubble above the character's head

"But I don't want to feel better."

Have you been there and done that? Come on be honest. Of course none of us really want to admit it, but if we would all be open enough to share what the kids call "the straight skinny, we've not only felt sorry for ourselves, we really didn't want anybody to cheer us up. There are some reasons we do it.

• For one thing it gets us attention. Some people may sympathize with our cause. As for those that don't - well at least they pay attention and that's better than no attention at all. Nothing's worse than feeling like a nobody. It's frightening to think that people might not miss you when you're gone.

• Feeling bad provides a wonderful excuse for not dealing with problems at all. You can avoid, delay, skirt around the edges and invest your energy in dozens of different ways to escape the task of confronting your problem.
  Feeling Bad is Not a Constructive Approach to Living

• Feeling bad distorts our view of the world. Elijah the prophet thought he was the only faithful man left, but God said, "Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel-all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal. . . "(2 Kings 19:18). We always paint the picture of our lives with the darkest colors when we feel bad.

• Feeling bad promotes inactivity. We fall into the "Chicken Little" syndrome. We think the sky is falling. We deprive ourselves of the opportunity to test our coping abilities

• Feeling bad excuses us from responsibility. We protest, "I couldn't," "I didn't have opportunity," "I was blocked," "I've got too many things on my plate right now" or a half-dozen other similar excuses. But deep down we know we didn't give it our best shot.

A troubling picture began to surface. A Gallup Poll reports that America is the most religious country in the world, yet we have the highest divorce rate on the planet. Our church attendance is four times that of Germany and France, and our divorce rate doubles theirs. Michael McManus, Ethics and Religion columnist, began to recognize this paradox. With all of our churches, we were the least ethical of modern nations.

Mr. McManus found a few churches that were tackling the problem of divorce among their people. After examining some of these churches and their approaches, he and his wife Harriett have developed a plan called Marriage Savers. Marriage Savers promotes identifying couples with strong marriages of 15-50 years, and teaming up these couples with young couples in their church to come along side the newly weds and be a mentoring couple to the young couple.

Because 74% of those who choose to marry in America do so in a house of worship, it is the clergy of a community who are targeted. Mr. McManus has developed a Community Marriage Policy which the clergy of a community agree to follow. In signing on to the Community Marriage Policy (each community tailors it to fit their needs), the clergy agree to certain premarital criteria for the couple and then follow up with connecting the young couple with a mentoring couple.

The results have been most exciting. Close to 150 communities have adopted a Community Marriage Policy with Marriage Savers. In 1986, Modesto, California was the nation's first city to jump on board with their Community Marriage Policy. The divorce rate of Modesto has dropped 47.6%. Kansas City, KS has reduced its divorce rate 44%. Other success stories are El Paso, Texas, Chattanooga, Tennessee and Dalton, Georgia. These cities have reduced their divorce rates from 20% - over 30% in just one to three years.

When a community turns their culture from one of divorce to marriage, other benefits have been realized. The school dropout rate in Modesto, California has fallen by 20% and the teen birthrate has fallen twice as fast as the national decline. Another benefit is that the numbers of marriages increased meaning more couples are choosing marriage over cohabiting.

If my community is a marriage culture, because the mindset of the area has been changed, I will be less likely to choose divorce. There will be more success stories around me and the talk will be of making a marriage work rather than walking out if it becomes a little difficult. There will be support people in each of the churches who are trained as mentoring couples where my husband and I can turn for help.