So here is my story, I find it exceedingly funny for some reason - and just proves what a tangled ordeal we're left with even after having been gone for years and years. Ok ordeal is probably too strong a word for this situation - but tangled none-the-less.
First the background:
- I am not a witness, technically never got baptized so therefore my family has a loophole to still talk to me
- My father was an elder he stepped down when I was like 8 or 9 because as he said, "I am in no way trained or equipped to deal with these people's problems"
- I'm getting married in September
- The wedding is going to be in my JW parents backyard and I am marrying a worldly man - who despite this they have learned to like anyway. (He's just that good!)
- My wedding is going to be officiated by my childhood best friend (now also an ex-jw) who has begun a side business of performing marriages for people who aren't exactly religious per say but would like more than just a justice of the peace. Ours was supposed to be her first wedding, but she's put her name on a few local wedding websites and has already performed 6 marriages before ours. (Awesome!)
- Another childhood friend (who's had his share of problems, but found himself a nice JW girl to marry) is getting married the weekend after me.
- Since his family was extremely close to mine (My parents brought his parents into the "Truth") and because they are not getting married in a Kingdom Hall (I don't think they are baptized - or she isn't or he isn't or they both aren't I dunno for sure) he wants my father to perform the marriage ceremony.
- Dad hasn't done a marriage since the late 1980's, but in our state once licenced to perform marriages you are always licenced. (A fact I know because of said ex-jw friend who is performing our ceremony).
Whew - got it?
So my father wants to do it, but is nervous. He has no idea what to say. He's very articulate and funny on his own - but he of course feels his ideas wouldn't be good enough.
I am writting our ceremony so I offered that he could plagiarize mine, but of course since I am writing it - it's full of secular rhetoric and any reference to God will be totally absent in mine. We're also doing a letter, wine, and box ceremony. Which means we're getting a bottle of wine and a box. We're writting letters to each other about why we like each other, why we want to marry each other, and what we appreciate about our relationship. We seal them (unread by the other party) and put them in the box - which also gets sealed. If we ever hit a rough patch in our relationship we're supposed to crack open the box, drink our wine, and read each other's letters before we make any rash choices about our relationship. The goal of course is that you won't need to open it until your 10th anniversary - at which time, you can redo the whole event again. I LOVE IT - but yeah probably a little to secular for my father.
Because I read here, I know darn well there is a marriage talk. Hell I've read it (and in another thread MissingLink was kind enough to give me the source again for it.)
So to put my father to ease I tell him, "Look there has to be some outline floating out there for marriage talks." (Knowing there is)
My father says, "I don't think so..."
Me "There has to be, or at least some format they follow, because they always ended up sounding pretty similar to me..." (she says trying to not give too much away).
So here I sit - with marriage talk in hand. I am dying to give it to my father to put him out of misery - but where do I tell him I got it from? I'm thinking I just say, "Hey I googled Jehovah's Witness Marriage Talk, and look what I found! Isn't this great?!"
My father is older and pretty vague on how the internet works, and would never actually try to google something like this himself. He'd probably buy it -- but he's also sat through enough district convention talks to know the internet is littered with Apostates, so where exactly did I get this could potentially come up. He wouldn't give it much thought, but much more savvy Mama - would totally want to know where I found it.
I find it hillarious that I know more about these outlines than my good parents who have been in for more than 35 years.
At this point I am thinking of folding it like a paper airplane and just sailing it through their kitchen window. Then they'll have a cool story about how Jehovah intervened and provided the proper food at the proper time, instead of their lousy non-believing daughter hooking them up with an outline hosted on the internet by Apostates. Heh heh.
Mad props to my home girl Irony for providing me this life situation. It is to laugh...at least I'm amused.