Peacemaker’s Marriage Seminar

Last week our church held a marriage seminar given by Peacemakers a smaller reformed branch of the larger Family Life organization. It was a big deal in our church, with what seemed like 50% percent of the congregants being involved in putting it on, in some way. My husband was in charge of the fundraising. He accomplished his fundraising goal and discovered that he actually likes asking people for money. Funny, huh? I would rather be tarred, feathered, and rode out of town on a rail. So, of course, we had to attend the seminar ourselves.\par
\par
A\’c3\’82\’c2\~friend of mine pointed out that you don’t have to have a rocky marriage to attend a seminar. But I couldn’t help but think that everybody who attended, would probably be very quick to explain what extraneous circumstances made it necessary that they attend the event, definitely not including marital trouble. Especially since the seminar’s title was “Living Above Marital Conflict”. That’s why I thought the funniest joke the speaker made was to observe that, of course, “All of you are just here to help others\’c3\’82\’c2\~since of course, you never have any marital conflict at all yourselves.”\par
\par
The other thing he said that was funny, although he wasn’t joking, was that all married couples should spend 30 minutes a day communicating, have a date night once a week (a unique date night… seldom the same thing twice, and not just dinner and a movie), and go away for the weekend 3-4 times a year. I think maybe it’s been a long time since he’s had little kids or something. It’d be nice, but we’re\’c3\’82\’c2\~very lucky to have guaranteed babysitting once a month!\par
\par
But it did make us think we should set aside more time for just the two of us, so we’ll work toward trying to follow the spirit, if not the letter.