Celebrating Divorce?
I was listening to NPR today at work and there was a story on a man in japan who performs divorce ceremonies. He thought it was weird we celebrated marriage but not divorce, so he has the couple, families and friends come to a ceremony.
If you want to read more about it here is an article I found about it.
I’m curious what you think about this…
Having been divorced, I can't go with this. To me, a divorce is death. It's the death of dreams, hopes and plans. It's the death of a life together. If the ceremony were like a funeral, it might be more appropriate.
I can say one thing for absolute certain: however you feel about divorce while you're going through it — happy, sad, relieved, betrayed, emotional, or numb — is not how you will feel about it a year or two down the road. Looking back on my divorce, I was far more cavalier about it at while I was going through it (read: justifying it), but now I see just how painful, regrettable and destructive it really was — for both of us.
Biblical issues aside, there is nothing about divorce that should be celebrated. Absolutely nothing. At best you are rejoicing in the fact that you being let out of a promise you made to your spouse. But is this really something to celebrate? It seems arrogant and even disrespectful to make light of doing exactly that which you made a commitment — before God and man — to never do.
Well, that's my two cents. :)
That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever read.
I heard that on the way to work and thought it was interesting too. I think that it is interesting because it's not really celebrating divorce, just "ritualizing" it, which for someone from eastern asia, would be a big deal. I bet it does provide closure in a way that they would normally not get. I do think that it is interesting that some people actually called it off during the ceremony, where they wouldn't have if it was just signing of papers…
Sometimes people really cannot work things out, and i think that having a ceremony where people tell the story and formalize it is a heck of a lot more healthy than our shame and shun culture here…