Clear!

Well, it's official! Zoe and I have been given approval or blessing from our clearness committee to go ahead and get married. A clearness committee is made up of members of a Quaker meeting who are charged with discerning how to respond to a particular choice or dilemma. In the case of a marriage, the committee helps to discern a) whether a couples' decision to get married is the right choice, and b) whether it is prudent for the meeting to take the couples' relationship and marriage under its care. Members of the committee perform some of the functions of pre-marital counseling in that they ask 'the hard questions' to see whether the couple has thought about important issues (i.e., finances, children, communication).

We only had one meeting with our clearness committee (the process can take months in some cases), but we're happy to report that we'll be married under the care (and with the blessing of) our Friends meeting. Zoe and I didn't have much doubt, but it certainly didn't hurt to go through the discernment process. Now it's back to more planning - we've gotten our reception site reserved, so the next thing to work on is food...woo-hoo!