“Don’t look at those! Those tabloids are trash and they will pollute your mind,” said my mother, and she was right.

So when she had my siblings and me in tow during her grocery trips, I learned to avert my eyes—after a quick peek of course. Were there really space aliens in Bolivia? How could an eight year old girl  give birth to triplets? I wondered.

I Took a Good Look

Years later my writing and speaking mentor, Florence Littauer—who was very much like a mother to me—taught me quite the opposite about reading those rags. “Take a good look,” she said. “To keep your finger on the pulse of the culture, you’ve got to know what they read, what interests them. Look at the headlines. What’s on the cover? There’s a story or a reference in each one.”

I was thrilled! Now I finally had not just an excuse to buy the National Enquirer, but a good reason:  I was determined to be a good writer and speaker and I needed to be in touch with my readers. I recall so many of Florence’s tips about how to pull out a good story or talk from a recent headline. “Your audience will love it. They’ll think you’re up to date on all the world events!”

Florence’s wisdom has served me well over the years. I’ve written fourteen books, produced a video series, given parish mission, and spoken at national conferences. One of my best talks was culled from a National Enquirer headline  about the “Costa Concordia”, a $450 million luxury cruise ship that had just been shipwrecked off the coast of Italy.

Divorce is Like a Shipwreck

My presentation was to a large audience about the struggles in relationships and the pain of divorce—something I know from sad, personal experience and having counseled others for over thirty years. I recall that at the grocery checkout stand the headlines jumped out and grabbed me as if to say: divorce is just like a shipwreck . . . someone veered way off course in their marriage and now the whole family is drowning in despair. As I read the article, even more points for my talk’s outline emerged. The captain, a living metaphor for the husband in the home, had been showing off and made several “unauthorized maneuvers” that resulted in a capsized ship and several dead passengers. While in his cabin with a young woman—not his wife—the ship hit an underwater boulder that tore a huge hole in the hull. The boat began to lurch onto its side as tables, chairs and filet mignons slid sidewalks along the dining room floor.

After the initial panic and chaos, passengers reported that the captain had abandoned ship; he claimed he tripped and accidentally fell into a lifeboat. Oh really? Each of the accounts revealed yet another similarity to the destruction of a marriage and the breaking of a home. It was perfect!

Whether or not you’ve been divorced, you probably know someone who has. From the cruise ship crash, anyone can understand something of the tragedy of divorce. Take a quick look and see what developed from one headline and one story:

Divorce happens when

Someone’s absent from the wheel

Later reports of this story revealed the captain was not at the helm and was in his cabin having dinner with the young female who was one of the ship’s dancers. When a spouse vacates his or her position in a marriage—in an affair, for a preoccupation with something sinful, or another illicit pursuit—divorce can become inevitable. It doesn’t have to be the end result, and every marriage is different, but this is the first step to tragedy.

Someone goes off course

Authorities reported that the ship’s route was well-charted to avoid the shore’s rocky dangers. For thousands of years the Church has been preserving and passing on God’s Word: guidelines for safe living and happy marriages. God knows where the dangers are and out of love for us He charts our course. But when we think we can go outside the safe route, we invite peril and even death of some sort to ourselves and others.

Someone jumps ship and abandons the others.

This can be a tricky one. Sometimes in divorce one spouse will pack up and leave and it’s clear who jumped off the ship and into the lifeboat for a hasty escape. Maybe, though, the person who jumped went into the icy waters to avoid the raging onboard fire and believed they had no other logical or moral choice. Again, every situation is different. Even if no one physically leaves, they can abandon each other emotionally. That’s when the marriage can strike a huge rock.

Someone who’s guilty will refuse responsibility and blame others.

Even if we “trip and fall” in some sinful behavior, we can and should always climb back aboard and try to save the marriage. In this real-life story, the coast guard called the captain and ordered him to get out of the lifeboat and back onto the ship to complete his duties. He didn’t and was later found guilty of manslaughter.  God calls us to do the same when our marriage is “going down,” giving us second and third chances, but because of our free will we can still refuse.

Some passengers will die.

Everyone is wounded in a divorce—whether they admit it or not—and some even suffer an emotional death. Children especially are vulnerable to finding themselves trapped in an emotional underwater tomb, like some of the dead bodies who were later pulled from beneath the wreckage. They can drown in sorrow; they can lose hope about love and become distrustful of adults and life in general. Something sweet and precious in them dies a watery death.

Some passengers will never sail again.

With the news of the shipwreck, people around the world rushed to cancel their already-booked cruise plans, causing millions of dollars of loss in the cruise industry. Similarly, because of the rampant divorce rates in our culture in the last few decades, a majority of our younger generations have cancelled their marriage plans and are choosing to live together rather than risk a failed marriage and the pain of divorce. Sadly, they don’t realize that studies have shown how cohabitation perpetuates a self-protective mentality and results in much higher divorce rates if they do eventually wed. Their fear of “cruising” is costing them and all of us in higher rates of divorce, depression, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, fatherless families, and all the trickle-down affects that these entail.

Some after-effects will harm the entire community.

Government engineers reported that even after the rescue there needed to be a major cleanup and that the wreckage of the ocean liner was polluting the environment. Hazardous waste and fuel were leaking into the waters and spreading out to the nearby shores, destroying flora, fauna, fish, and human property. Marriages strengthen and bless the whole community; divorces curse the whole community. They spew anger, hurt, lies, financial ruin, higher rates of emotional problems, and even death into the “environment” and succeeding generations. It’s no wonder God hates divorce.

Some will find hope in the Church.

Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more^[1][1]. Even in a culture of divorce, even in a shipwreck, there are always stories of hope and love. The ship’s Catholic priest stayed to the end helping others and was one of the last to leave the wreckage. One woman told the tale of not knowing how to swim and how her husband had given her the only life jacket they had. “Jump, honey! I’ll be with you,” the husband assured his terrified wife. She put on the jacket, they jumped into the icy waters, and she  floated on her back as she helplessly watched her spouse drift away. “I never saw him again,“ she cried to the reporters.

The unfaithful captain who abandoned his ship is like a divorcing spouse who caused all manner of evils in the family and community; the husband who gave his life so that his wife could live is the beautiful image of Christ dying for His bride.

The Church is Here to Help.

And what’s the rest of the story? Rescue workers standing at the rocky shore pulled the woman from the water and took her to a church to keep her warm.

I finished my talk on divorce with this dramatic and tear-jerking love story. Because of the universal truths found in this tragic tale, I was able to remind the audience that the Church is not here to condemn the divorced but to console them. We know the hope we have in Scripture, but God can “speak” His love and truth to us anywhere—we simply have to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. In this case, our salvation story was tucked inside the tabloids with a final reminder that it is indeed within the Church that we can find rescue, hope, and the “warmth” that we need after any of life’s shipwrecks.

I got a standing ovation—but I owe much of it to Florence. She inspired a passion for people within me and gave me a love for a good story. She taught me that life’s lessons are all around us; that the visible world reveals the invisible. And thanks to my friend, co-author, mentor and would-be-mother, when I’m waiting in line at the check-out counter I always look at the tabloid trash . . . to find the tabloid treasure.

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Do you need some wisdom and guidance during or after your divorce? Schedule a coaching session with me (see links below) or find comfort in one of my books.

^[1][1] Romans 5:20