Ange and I fulfilled our pre-Cana responsibilities in one fell swoop last week
by attending a weekend retreat. As in, you must retreat from your senses to
endure the silliness of the whole affair. The weekend was set up as a nonstop
series of lectures by a parade of snippy, passive-aggressive Catholic couples
(examples for us all), followed by sessions in which we betrothed would answer
discussion questions and then privately compare notes on the matter. The first
two or three were actually pretty good, touching on our past together, how we
planned to handle various aspects of married life and our plans for the future.
I’m happy to say Ange & I know each other well enough that we generally wrote the same things to each other. Then it got repetitive, and at turns disturbing, at which point we began writing essays with the sole aim of making the other laugh.
Here are some excerpts:
Q. How will our differences complement each other?
A. It helps that you are a genetic male XY and I am a genetic female XX.
On theology:
Open our hearts to God => God is a heart surgeon => God has God complex
On sexuality in marriage, after the 60-year-old couple described their lovemaking-eww-eww-eww-ness:
Tips for keeping the flame alive:
- Movie fantasy
- "Special" foot rubs
- Hide X-rated greeting cards around the house
- Conflate sex with religion
- Dungeon
On our future family:
Reasons for having children:
- Organ source
- DNA propagation
- Christmas gifts
- Kid's menus
- Geriatric caregivers
And then there were lots of snarky comments about Natural Family Planning, too. Despite our lack of reverence we graduated anyway, and all in all it wasn’t too bad, but I am so glad that’s over with.