Hey Michael,

I failed to include just how much I appreciated your thoughts, and the scriptual parts come up at most family letters.  I married for life, and if someone tells me that is an easy journey, then I wish they  would will their brains to science. Jesus used the imagery of, a bride, and a groom more than once — so New Testament wise; only monogamy is recognized for the love of marriage.  Passion is something over which we seem to have faint control,  so passion gets package in to a pretty box where the ribbon stays on, and more and more I believe that when the passion flowers in full, we are content, but passion is also a beautiful bird, and it sounds through the years,

I was not raised in love but in fear, so having to give myself the ultimate classes in love, then I would find sitting beside me, just touching my own hand to find what gentleness felt like,  Most weddings are just so filled with all of this passion, that I sometimes wish all marriages had to have preparation classes before the deed is done.  We make the statement, “God is love.” and for most that is very powerful, but others see only passion as something which survives the briefest of times.  Then, if every person understood that marriage is more like a covenant, then more and more would settle for the passion portion of all that  is before them.

I believe we can love a lot of people in a room, even beyond the platonic, for just being around them; our faces change color, and our hands become warm, but in my marriage;  I have walked away… And yes, kiddies, we growing older wish to feel –even  passion, and when you grow up you will get this through your skulls that there is such a thing as chemistry, and it is a vital part to a healthy marriage.

Many of the weddings now are just really big shows;  And will we be having fillet mignon, a pasta course, and always chicken cordonbleu, and even the tables have dresses.  I just want to ask sometimes for people to take down the really big show, and please help people to understand that love and passion may be entertwined many times, but so will love and doubt,  and many of us are ruled by what is passion which can disappear…

It is just great to hear more of what you think, so keep the thoughts coming.  That the first of Jesus’s miracles was making wine from water at the wedding places weddings on some rather high standards.  I am just so sorry that covenants are so easily broken without a look at what got people to the alter.  I want to say that women today are having a hard time finding men who want the marriage responsibility, but here I am going to give men a pass, for it was in my generation when the world was going to be so equal that  all was shared, and there was none of this, “Honey, I’m Home,”  and I am sad to say that women might have denied themselves enjoyable time with children and even the wonderful and long week ends of love making.  We got equality to the point that a lot of fellows just tell other guys, “Don’t do this,” for when we are all sticking to the new rules, whatever they are, then it is somewhat clear to me that we are apt to see older brides and fewer children.  It wasn’t such an awful thing for men and women to have roles which were a little clearer.

But thanks for doing the article.  It is great for us to know what other men thing.

Blessings My Friend, Barb