Wednesday, February 16, 2011

PREREQUISITE FOR MARRIAGE: introspection

“I am a single dad with a three year old son by a woman I love very much and desire to marry. She is a very strong and accomplished woman, who believes that I am not ready for marriage. I will admit that I am living at home with my mother and my job situation is not as secure as hers. How do I bring myself to a place of readiness?” - anon.


My first question: Why does she think you are not ready for marriage?


Persia Pele & her man

I have five questions: Are you judging yourself? Is living with your mother wrong, or shameful? Is your job not measuring up to a standard? What could the standard be? Are you in a job that is connecting you to your purpose?


My other questions stem from my recollections of the process I took to become a married man. Outside of the fear your woman will leave you why should you get married? What is your definition of marriage, and manhood? Merging. Do you understand the concept, and the practice in relationship to marriage? What do you understand about ceremony, and the history of your family’s stories of marriage?

Your mother-son relationship tells many stories. Does your woman scorn you, or the relationship with your mother? Technology has changed marriage, and the definition of marriage. Where do you stand in the midst of these changes? Are you rigid holding fast to ideologies better suited for times past, or are you weighing the issues raised for and against marriage? Are you engaged in the dialogues shifting around accepted stories, and beliefs about women, marriage, and childrearing honestly, or as a man fixated on dominance in marriage, and childrearing?

There are many questions to be faced and answered. The basic and simplest questions boil everything down to this: “everything boils down to a question of life and death.” What will you put on your altar to face with truth, your truth? These are fundamental questions you should answer outside of the clichéd beliefs common to man-talk, and religious-speak. These are my words. I am Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

lovers by Madeline Bernadette Scot


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