Monday, November 27, 2006

UU Update

So we met with the new minister and I'm liking her more and more every time I talk to her. I am very hesitant, as she is a minister and thus immediately suspect, but we'll see.

Our first meeting was a get-to-know-our-story meeting. She made it clear that as children of members of the church we don't need to pay to be married there. And she also made it clear that she does not expect or want us to join unless that feels right to us. I've never felt so little pressure from a minister at that church.

I like her approach to "pre-marriage counciling" or whatever it is. She meets the first time to get to know us. On the second meeting she'll ask us all kinds of tough questions, kind of like a councilor, to see if we've thought about our relationship and our future. She'll ask how we fight, what we fight about, if we want kids, what our money situation is like, what we want for careers, what's important to us at the end of the day, etc. I look forward to it; I've always enjoyed an invigorating round of self-reflection.

The third meeting is to plan the actual ceremony. She sends us information on two weddings she did, one very traditional and one ass-backwards. Then we pick and choose what we want.

I'm looking forward to the process. But the most important thing that happened in our first meeting was that she acknowledged and we talked about the pain that the previous minister left us with. She was very sympathetic and could relate to us with her own stories of seeing colleagues act recklessly. We talked about when you can and cannot forgive, what the three of us can do to help the Fiancee and I feel at ease in the community again, and what options we have in talking to members of the church who were involved. She has really laid to rest many of our problems with the church from when that minipulative monster ran it. I feel like we can start over in our relationship with the church and with organized religion as a whole. I still don't think I'll join, and I still have trouble trusting organized religion, but I'm open to going more often and volunteering for a few of the things that interest me there.

I am very happy. And I can't wait to get married.

1 Comments:

Blogger coffeesnob said...

This post makes me so happy I want to cry.
For real.

7:47 PM  

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