Recently, I had the opportunity to tour the newly renovated Atlanta Temple. It was a chilly but sunny day, and we had a picnic afterward. Notwithstanding my bum knee (I was afforded the use of a wheelchair), the tour was very enjoyable. A more beautiful building than a Temple would be impossible to find.
One of the last rooms we went thru was the Sealing Room, where marriages are performed for eternity rather than "'til death us do part". I remarked afterward that it was nice to see a Sealing Room on the tour, since that's the only time I'd ever get to see one.
Don't get me wrong. I could marry any woman I please. Problem is, I don't please any of 'em. Then, too, is the problem of all the
d'rum und d'ran that surrounds marriages here in the USA. Despite the fact that only five people are needed to effect a legally recognized marriage, as the late Jimmy Durante used to say: "Everybody's gotta get in the act.". The end result is something more akin to a Ringling Bros. circus than a religious ceremony.
All the groom knows is that he's got to smile for the 10,000 cameras. So he stumbles around with a nervous tic, looking like a punch-drunk boxer and his "smile" looking like he just bit into an apple and found half a worm. The bride, meanwhile, has the heart rate of a hummingbird, her blood pressure is 540/320, and she hasn't blinked in three days.
I'll pass. Unless I can find an orphan with no siblings who doesn't mind the idea of eloping.
