Simple Pleasure Thurs- errr, Friday - err, Monday?

Oops!  I meant to post yesterday, Friday, but my simple pleasure is exactly the reason I didn't post.  My simple pleasure is reconnecting with my fiancé.

Our first and only real argument, though we never raised voices, was a few weeks ago.  Father's Day to be precise.  We had gone to Mass in a neighboring parish.  I had meant to go many times, but I never got to it.  It was right after Camden, and I had felt really connected to religion for the first time in a while.  The Mass was awful.  Really awful.  I hated it.  But I knew that it was the priest, not the Church, that I was unhappy with.  So on the ride from the church to *B*'s parent's house, we discussed religion.

*B* wasn't raised with any religious education or association.  He had only been to a Bible camp with friends once, and they told him he and his family were going to Hell.  Most recently, he had been exploring non-Christian religious ideas.  I wasn't thrilled with it, but considered it harmless.

When we decided to get married in the Catholic church, we knew we had to answer affirmatively to three questions:

• Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?
  
• Will you love and honor each other as husband and wife for the rest of your lives?
  
• Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?
  
  

When the priest had first told us these questions, he put the third one as "will you expose your children to the law of Christ and his Church?"  *B* was okay with that.  When the priest at the Father's Day mass reiterated the question as posed above, *B* started to get worried.

So anyhoo, the whole way to his parents' house, we talked about religion.  Since his awful experience with Christians (of some Protestant denomination), he was very leery.  To be fair, I was inordinately dismissive of his current beliefs.  Either way, I felt so cut off from him.

Last night, we went out to dinner.  We had been having a good conversation, so rather than going home, we went for a drive.  We got back on the subject of religion, but in a much better way.  I asked him what he actually believes (because even though you categorize yourself, no one believes all of what their religion says 100%).  The things he identified were not mutually exclusive from Christianity, and forms of it are actually present within Christian teachings.  We talked about how unlikely it was that some dude died for something he something he did wrong, even though he hasn't done anything.  We talked about taking the Bible literally versus investigating the metaphors behind the passages.  Then, we got home and picked out the readings for our wedding.  I haven't felt so connected to him in a long time, and I certainly haven't felt connected to him in that context.