Wedding Prep Class

Below is a sketch of what Michael and I learned at Wedding Prep class:

1) Lay people are more important to the Church than priests
(Hmm...I can't remember the last time I saw a lay person confect the
Eucharist or absolve sins...)

2) It's impossible to dissolve a covenant. Marriage is a covenant. If
you want to ever want to dissolve that covenant to get an annullment,
it's really hard to do.

3) Preparation for the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony has nothing to do
with religion.

4) In an 8 hour class preparing for marriage, children didn't make the
cut on the list of things to talk about. However, the benefits of
having separate checking accounts...did.

5) Separate checking accounts solve many financial struggles of the
couple.

6) Prayer is important for the big things and the little thing. But if
you try it and it doesn't work, maybe it's not for you. Feel free to
try something else.

7) It is possible to go an 8 hour class preparing for a sacrament, and
not mention "Jesus" until the 7th hour.

Well, perhaps this little sketch doesn't do the class justice.
Actually, I think Michael and I had a good time. We talked a lot,
which is always fun. And we met a really nice couple who have been
married for 53 years with 8 kids and are really involved in the
Church.

That couple co-taught the class, and they were really nice and you
could see how pivotal the faith was to their family. But the other
couple, Ken and Lisa were so totally opposite. In the segment on
"Dreams and Goals" they seemed to omit "children" from their plan
altogether in favor of jobs at Hollywood studios or retirement in
Hawaii.  They were like low-budget actors who were thrilled whenever
they got a role as an extra....it was pretty sad.

They also had this ability to conduct the class in such a way that
many of their marital struggles were advertised in every example they
gave. I mean, more than an idea of how to have a successful marriage,
we got to see many intricacies of what goes wrong in theirs. I mean,
any marriage has its share of struggles, but they seemed totally
incapable of teaching a class without exposing all their problems, but
the sad thing was, they weren't even consciously doing it! They didn't
mean to be "open" and "vulnerable." They were just self-centered and
used the class as a forum for exposing their frustrations with each
other.

The highlight for me was when they were talking about the merits of
separate checking accounts, and I told Lisa that that doesn't really
seem to jive with the whole idea of unity they were trumpeting
earlier.  Lisa didn't know how to respond except give an annoying,
super-chipper, condescending bellow "Ding, ding ding! You go to the
head of the class for that answer."  She did that so she could have a
few spare moments to get out of the logical trap she set for herself.
It didn't help. The best she could come up with was "You should be
united in your decision to have separate checking accounts."    Please
see the picture of "crazy lisa" in the "Pages section."

If it hadn't been for that older couple, the day would have been much
worse...but we still would have enjoyed it, I think.  The thing is
that both Michael and I have grown up in oving homes our whole lives
with parents who love and respect each other...so we;ve really had
nearly 30 years each of good, solid, loving and faith-filled marriage
prep.

Thank you to Mom and Dad Barber and Gilmore!!

NB

Join group to reply 7/7/07

But if it was a good class, you really wouldn't have anything that
interesting to write about here.

So thank you, Ken and Lisa! =]