One time...I went to church..

I was raised going to church every Sunday morning with my mom and my dad. That lasted until i was about eight years old, and my mother decided that she no longer was going to church, and if she didn't have to wake up at nine in the morning then i wasn't about to do it either. So, i stopped going as well. My father continued to attend our church every Sunday until i was in high school. Then, we all stopped going. However, since then, religion has been a topic of interest for me. I chose to have friends who were atheist, really religious, and nonsecular throughout my life after i stopped attending church. I think this was mainly to see where i fit in with the whole "God issue"-Do you believe in God or don't you? Today i feel like i know that i do not believe in an imaginary man in the sky, and i tend to go down the more scientific path. I went to church last Sunday though, and i found that even if the notion of coming from Adam and Eve is a bit far fetched for me i still gained a sense of inspiration and grounding and belonging from attending the service. Ironically enough, during the service we were talking about relationships. What it means to be single, married, or divorced. Marriage is such a big deal in the church community, because it is a commitment before god. It is a life time together, literally. It is not acceptable to have sex before marriage and so on, with rules and regulations about what goes on behind closed doors when it comes to church relationships. (mind you this is a large generalization from the service i attended and what i heard. it is, I'm sure, different from religion to religion.) anyways, I'm sitting there listening to this thinking that church people have immense self control, or at least they pretend to. Then, the next day i walk into anthropology class and I'm confronted with a cultural discussion of relationships and marriage, and I'm thinking, how bizarre, but i run with it. After listening and breaking down what a relationship was with the class, i leave and go visit with my friend who i went to church with, and we begin talking about the ideal relationship. How arranged marriages work, what doesn't work, and why people get divorced. We both came to the conclusion, mind you this is not scientific, and it is rather quite simplistic: if people can make arranged marriages work by whatever means necessary, then why is it that we cant willingly try and make relationships work that we have chosen? A friend of mine, who has been married and divorced said to me, that he believes he knows what didn't work about his first marriage and that he will, the next time around, be more willing to make the relationship work the second time around, because he is more aware of what he is looking for, and better understands how to make relationships work. I think he is lying to himself, but that's be going to back to science and statistics that say 85% of second marriages end in divorce. Maybe some people are "called" to be single, as the pastor said it in church, and maybe some of us are called to be married five times. However i would like to think that i am not called for marriage or divorce, but rather i live breathe and die happy knowing that i spent my life or portions of my life with people or a person that i loved, cared for, honored, and cherished...(or however those vows go) without having to put a ring on it like Beyonce or be bounded by god.