Vetting

I have heard this word for years, but never looked it up. In context I figured it meant checking into the background of another. The press and politicos talk about the vetting process when an unknown comes upon the scene...as in, "He has been well vetted by the press." "The presidential campaign is a vetting process. The dictionary however does not use it in the same context as the media...but like a lot of other words current or modern usage gets the nod as to meaning. Merriam Webster has three meanings to vet; (1) take an animal to a veterinarian or a person for medical treatment; (2) to subject a person to a physical evaluation or check up: and finally (3) to subject to expert appraisal or correction: to EVALUATE.

I visited my hair cutter today (a 40 year old mother of four who has been cutting my hair since she was 19...and so knows our family well) and we talked about the usual stuff...how's Aleene enjoying retirement; how's Amy coming with getting another child; and how's Jeff? Well, when she hit that one...bingo. The words just tumbled out as I told Deb that we met Jeff's lady friend (girlfriend sounds to sophomoric) last weekend. As hair cutters will, she asked all the right questions (she had a brother that did not get married until forty and she has been telling me for years that it would happen.)

I read Jeff's and Mary's bloggs this afternoon in between screening over 100 resumes for some jobs I am trying to fill and the word vet came popping out in my mind. That is what Jeff and Mary are doing right now...they are vetting the other.

Deb told the story of how she and her husband had known each other from highschool and while they didn't become serious until the last part of their senior year, they had known the other and their families for years. Not to be outdone, I recalled that while Aleene and I started dating the summer she graduated from highschool, I had known her family since she was five (that sounds even longer than since I was seven.) We too knew each other's family...well. Her youngest aunt married my oldest brother and her mother's mother (Grandma Coryea) had been at our house for either Thanksgiving or Christmas for about ten years...yes, we knew about each other....well.

Deb updated me with her 16 year old daughter's love life, which she allowed was too young to start, but capped it off by saying, "We have known his family for years and he has been reared well." Time and families can aid the vetting process, can't they.

Back to Jeff and Mary. How do you vet someone you have only known about for a few months and who had their roots in either New Mexico or Pennsylvania? They both explained it in their blogs...you meet the parents (us) and you meet the kids (Mary's) which is ok, but that can be biased a little by the relationship and while it furnishes intuitive information, there is not very much emperical about the judgement of family.

The telling process, so far at least, is to meet their church people. So that's what they are doing. It is my belief that five years of faithful service in front of some pretty discerning folks can yield some very interesting comments. We have received them about Jeff when we go to First church with (or without) Jeff...."You raised a good, young man (that from a 70 something male); or "We really like Jeff." Or, "Jeff has been such a dependable person working with the youth." And on and on it goes. What Mary needs to understand (by my way of thinking) is that these folks too are biased...and they only see Jeff in church work. BUT, if you asked Jeff's cousins...predominantly female you would hear the same message, if you asked Jeff's coach/math teacher, you would hear the same thing, if you asked the people he worked for over the years...even my hair cutter who knew him for about two years...they will all tell the same story.

The real vetting process comes from visiting his house...if you can wade through the CD's, radios, TiVo wires and Bibles and concordances and still see a catch...then he is a catch.

I write this in jest, only somewhat, and with a curious view from a perch above 35,000 feet. We get glimpses into their hearts through their blogs and that is special. They truly seem to be matched up by God's plan for their lives...at least this part of their lives, which includes vetting.