Wicca, Weddings, and Family

My fiancé and I are in fairly regular contact throughout the day, nothing major, just simple connections at certain times of the day. Usually updates on our busy schedules and comforting words of encouragement or love notes to make each day a little brighter.

We only text each other in person when we are unable to talk out loud.

After returning home from his martial arts class last night Chris sent me the following text:

Just spoke to mom about a bunch of things: your gift list, Xmas breakfast, and Wicca. She had questions and felt better asking than assuming. 🙂

I read that and immediately called him!

The conversation went something like this:

 Me: “Hey! Sooo… what did she ask???”

Chris: “Oh she just wanted to know more about Wicca and what it meant. She asked if she’d heard correctly about you mentioning your coven”

Me: “Uh… ok.” *sounding a tiny bit worried*

Chris: “Mom is pretty open-minded. She likes to watch those episodes about Ancient Egypt on the History Channel so she has a bit of an understanding about pre-Christian religion.”

After they talked I guess both Chris and his mom realized they had concerns regarding his grandmother. His Italian Catholic grandmother from New Jersey, more specifically.  Luckily, this isn’t news for me; we’ve already talked at length about this from the very beginning.

I then reminded him about my families. On my father’s side my great-aunts are such devout Catholics they used to go on Pope tours! They are quite proud to be Polish and when he was still alive they followed John Paul II around from location to location as though they were Dead-heads and he was the Grateful Dead. (I’m certain there’s a joke in there somewhere. I shall resist.)

In contrast, my mom’s side, who are also Catholic, are Filipino Catholic and thus a bit more superstitious, but also incredibly devout Catholics, especially when it came to baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

And then we have my birth mother’s side of the family. They’re predominantly Mormon, with many of them being the Temple garment wearing type of Mormons. So, very devout.

Mormon Temple in Anchorage, AK

Members from all three of these families will be invited to our wedding.

I told him last night that how people behave or react to our choice of religion or wedding ceremony is simply not something we can waste time worrying about. There is the chance that they’ll be gracious enough to attend with an open mind and enjoy it for what it is. However, if they have deep issues with it, they don’t need to attend. It would certainly be disappointing if that happened, but then the choice to ruin their opportunity for sharing in our joyous moment was done so by them, not us.

I also suggested that by worrying over it, giving energy to the possibility of problems creates drama where none has yet occurred. That perhaps it would be in our best interest to not yet worry about something that has not shown it’s self to assuredly be an issue. If it does indeed become an issue we’ll deal with it then.

He knew I was right. (This marriage-to-be is already off to a great start!)

I do know that some of my family members are uncomfortable or just critical of my choice of religion, among other things. Those family members in particular are not very close to me, nor have they ever made much of an effort to get to know me anyway, so their criticism of me is irrelevant to my overall well being. In other words, I don’t care what they think. Coincidentally, none of them will be invited to the wedding. 😉

I have other friends where the family religion conflict was such a big issue for the wedding that it brought strife and many tears to the should-be-happy couple.

I’m aware that some situations are complicated, but in my opinion, if the happy couple are paying for their own wedding, the unpleasant and unkind criticism of the couple by family regarding their happy day should be kept to one’s self. It seems unreasonable and selfish to put pressure on a couple to do their ceremony in a way different than what they wish for just to please those who are critical of them.

This is supposed to be a celebration of love, if you’re bringing hurtful criticism and unreasonable demands to the table it’s time you step back and figure out what your overall motivation is and why you insist on doing such a thing.

Anyway, it seems like more conversations may occur before our wedding, but I’m up for it. Luckily, I have a fair amount of experience explaining Wicca to those with no previous exposure to alternative religions. Such is life outside the broomcloset!

RANDOM MUSIC

Russian pop-music! This song was released in 2005. Arash is an Persian performer, who resides in Sweden. Blestyaschie (Russian: Блестящие, English: The Shining Ones) are a Russian pop group. Though Arash is known for singing in Persian, in this particular song he’s singing in Russian. I love the blending of the cultures in this song. Very fascinating!

Arash Feat. Blestyashchie~ Vostochnye Skazki (Russian: Восточные сказки, English: Oriental Fairytales)