Letting Go, Getting Clear

I wanted to write a fuller report of the clearness process I went through with my partner. I don't particularly have time to do so right now, but here's at least a recap.

First of all, we went about the entire thing mostly backwards and upside down. We are not getting married under the care of a Meeting, but merely in the manner of Friends. Thus, there is no Monthly Meeting to do the clearness process with, or to appoint a clearness committee for us. As I understand it, if we were doing everything in good Quaker order we would have come to the meeting when we first discerned a leading to marry and asked to be married under the care of the Meeting. They would have appointed us a clearness committee, and after a clearness process the committee would have come back and reported to the Meeting if they had found us clear and if they recommended that the Meeting take our marriage under its care. At that point a marriage oversight committee would have been put together and we would set the date, tell our friends and proceed with our plans with the logistical, emotional and spiritual support of our marriage committee.

Needless to say, that was not what we did. My partner proposed and I accepted in what I hoped was a prayerful and well-led way, but was almost immediately consumed by doubt as to whether or not we actually felt led by G-d to wed. In spite of this we proceeded through the engagement to-do list for the next eight or nine months, told our family we were getting married, set a date, booked a venue and a band and hotel rooms for the out of town guests. Meanwhile we also met with our elders and mentors, and put together a list of folks to form a clearness committee with, and scheduled times to meet. Doing all this simultaneously made the whole thing more confusing than ever.

Our committee met for four times, without a really clear and articulated sense of what we were hoping to accomplish as a group. We shared stories and concerns, looked for deeper truths, and finally just sat in waiting worship. We meditated on commitment and loss, on failure and on paradox and mystery.

In the second to last meeting we purposefully tried to discern if we were clear to marry, but that meeting did not lead to clarity for me, only more pain and more confusion. By the next day I had started to have panic attacks, and the following day I had a total breakdown and felt my whole life unraveling, unmade like a hat someone stopped knitting, pulled the needles out and began to pull out, one row at a time. I wasn't sure about anything at all, least of all whether I ought to marry my partner. I could barely speak in coherent sentences. Finally I realized that I could not make that decision, that I simply could not know if I ought to marry. I found that it was simply not the right time for that decision, and that either I would reach a better time later (after I get out of this crazy time of transition and flux) or I had already reached that time years before, and I needed to have faith and keep going with that decision. It was a crazy thing to do, to surrender what seems like the most important decision I'll ever make in the midst of serious doubt and reservations. It was a leap of faith, but it was also the only good option. I could not live if I did not trust life, trust G-d and trust myself. That was a turning point, and things were better after that.

The last meeting I came at last into a sense of peace and love in the silent worship. It was a good process, and it did lead to a deep sense of clarity for me, but in such a backwards and confusing way. If any of you readers decide to get married in a Quaker fashion, please do yourself the favor and have the clearness process first, before you get too deep into the commitment to marry.