Pre-caanan weekend retreat

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Pre-caanan weekend retreat


Subtitle: My Agnosticism is not in Jeopardy: A report from the Front

Dear friends,

As you might have heard, to get married in the mission in San Antonio, 
we had to go to a "wedding workshop" sponsored by the Catholic church. 
9  ours total. Several couples spoke to us about various topics. Very 
little information was conveyed, and there was a persistent sense that 
one was being talked to as if one was a child. No useful information 
was imparted in 9 hours of blather. (By the way, of the people speaking 
to us there were: two accountents, two engineers, a priest, and someone 
involved in "communications workshops.")

For example, here are some of the things I learned from the couple whose 
assigned topic was "Expectations":

* Expectations exist
* prayer helps
* they're from texas
* 50% of married couples today get divorced. The deeper impact of this 
  statistic can be fully realized by having half the room stand up.
* Steve was terminated. But he rose again, and became a cpa.
* In crisis, prayer helps--but writing things down is also useful.
* Football teaches us about life. It's a metaphor. We learn that, as in 
  football, life too must be tackled.
* Proper handshake technique (male) takes 20-30 minutes to teach (by an 
  educator).
* Unauthorized children's haircuts  may provoke intense rage among women 
  from rural texas.
* Marriage is a "spiral." Lower expectations on certain portions of the 
  "spiral" of life. This spiral will occasionally dip down (that's the 
  kind of spiral it is) but eventually it will always head "up"; that's 
  the nature of spirals.
* This life is not about us--it's about God. This helps us to understand 
  that a new car is not as important as a marriage.
* Marriages stay together because God grants people the grace to stay 
  together. Without God's help, couples would never make it. (How 
  non-catholic couples stay together--luck?--was neither mentioned nor
  explained.)

In a nutshell, that was our weekend. I will leave out the family planning 
method talk, which masquaraded as science but which turned out to be more 
of a preachy magic show. Long live the pill and all its dangerous side 
effects, I say.

Today, more teaching. Actually, two more weeks to go.

Take care,

David


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