Do you know Pioneer Woman? Stick-to-your-ribs recipes, life on a ranch, and her romance with her cowboy husband, "Marlboro Man," in serial form? The latest installment includes an account of marriage preparation classes at their Episcopal Church. Oh, my. I get uncomfortable on behalf of her cowboys-don't-share-their-feelings husband just reading her account:Father Johnson stood up to bid us farewell until our session the following week. I picked up my purse from its spot next to my chair.“Thank you, Father Johnson,” I said, standing up.
“Wait just a second,” he said, holding up his hands. “I need to give you both a little assignment.”
I’d almost made a clean getaway.
“I want you both to show me how much you know about each other,” he began. “I want you both to make me a collage.”
I looked at him for a moment. “A…a collage?” I asked. “Like, with magazine pictures and scissors and glue?”
“Yes,” Fr. Johnson replied. “And it doesn’t have to be large or elaborate; just use a piece of legal-size paper as the backdrop. I want you to fill it with pictures that represent all the things you know about the other person. Bring it to your session next week and we’ll look at them together.”
This was an unexpected development.
I made the mistake of glancing at Marlboro Man, who’d probably never felt more uncomfortable in his life than he did at that moment, once he faced the prospect of sitting down and working with paper and glue in an effort to prove to someone else how much he knew the woman he was going to marry. He tried to keep a straight face, to remain respectful, but I’d studied his beautiful features enough to know when things were going on under the surface. Marlboro Man had been such a good sport through our series of premarital training. And this—a collage assignment—was his reward.
Actually, it's the parson I feel uncomfortable for. How can a grown man put any stock in such an exercise? Can you imagine yourself asking the guy in the photo for a collage?
