Wedding Bells 1: Religious Wedding
Wow! It has been awhile since the last time I wrote something in this blog! I have been so tired lately (I prefer to say that I have been ‘so tired’ than ‘so busy’ because I do not want to appear as a super busy person and in a fact I AM NOT A SUPER BUSY PERSON). However, despite the fact I am glad that I can write in my blog again, I also have sometimes for myself to escaping from the hustle bustle city of Jakarta to the lush green mountains of Ubud without being annoyed to be stuck in the traffic jam or breathe dirty air.
Anyway, although I mentioned before that I am not a super busy person, but lately I have been dealing with so many things related to my wedding preparation especially regarding with the legalization process of our marriage, which is quite headache for me as well as for my fiance because we are not living at the same city and we are both too busy with our jobs.
Sometimes, I just questioned myself (1) Why my country does not make life easier for its citizen to deal with the marriage legalization? (2) Why should we have a religious wedding in order to register our marriage?(3) Why is two people with different faith difficult to get married? (4) Why does the government want to control people belief? WHY? *I feel like to pull my hair*
Let me tell you why I am being stressed out too much about the wedding. First of all, I am a Javanese girl, who was born and raised up in a Catholic family. I was baptized when I was … (Errr I do not remember or perhaps even worse I do not know how old I was when I was baptized), I was then sent to a Catholic school from kindergarden to university (which frankly I am thankful for it because I was sent to a good school) and when I was 18 years old Walla! I got an ID Card which mentioned that I am Catholic. But, what can you say or do if you live in the country such as Indonesia where religion is being forced to the people culturally and systematically? This practice has been going for many years in this country where parents will pass their religion to their kids. You simply cannot be a citizen without any religion and as you go through all the bureaucracies across the country, they will ask you what your religion is through the form that you need to fill, whether it is in the office, in the hospital, in the office or in the government agencies.
As I grew up, learnt something, consume the media and saw the reality around me related to the religion, I made up my mind that religion is no more than a social concept where it puts mankind in the box with its label that makes them different one to another. In the end, religion creates a problem among the community because it is very sensitive thing.
I actually do not want to make my parents upset because they want to have their kids to follow the religion that they have given to me and to my two other siblings. But, I cannot do so! I cannot follow and believe to the religion that they have given to me since I was born. It is not because that Catholic is bad religion because I am sure that all religions are good in a way, but it is because religion is no more than social construction among the society to control them. However, it needs to be noted that I am not anti religious people. I respect their choices.
Anyhow, as the marriage legalization cannot be done without any religious wedding in Indonesia (except I want to get married in another country such as Singapore, Canada, Australia or England), I have to do the religious wedding. In order to do a Catholic wedding, we have to take two weeks or two days ‘wedding course’ therefore we can get a license to get married. I understand why the wedding course or premarital counseling is needed as it can ensure that the dreams of a great marriage and a great life are realized. But, I just simply do not get it why the political and the religious institutions gives human being hard time to be able to get married as in the end of the day they are also human being who has the same right.
If I can choose, I want to take the simplest way such as getting married in Singapore, Canada, England or just taking the easiest religious wedding procedure because all we need is legalization. Other than that, if I want to do Catholic wedding is actually because I want to make my parents happy as my dad is actually cool with whatever way I want to take. He is not difficult man with a judgement whether I am a sinner or not because I do not go to the church or not and he has been giving me a freedom since I was 18 years old to find my own way to be whatever I want to be. Therefore, I think he deserves to get an unspoken wish that he never told me and the unspoken wish is his willing that her rebel daughter is getting in the church. (Although I will not really mean * deep down inside my heart* what I will say in front of the priest, it is because there will be some contradiction between my belief and the church demand i.e the demand on raising the kinds in Catholic way)
It was little bit a joke that I got text messages from somebody (I do not want to mention who (s)he is) saying that if I do not get married in a Catholic way, I will not get any bless from my parents (While my dad said to me that I can choose the easiest way) and I will not be happy likes the other person who has left Catholicism (Ha! Mind your own business please! You can follow your belief but you cannot force to other person!).
To be honest, I do not like with those kind of people! It’s my belief! You have your own belief and I respect you, but do not ever force your belief to any body else because that is not cool. It makes me just lost my respect to you and prefer to keep the distance from you. Other than that, I just expect that there is nobody will judge or think that my parents have failed in raising me as a Catholic fellow because they actually do not fail at all, they give me a freedom to be a free minded person who can explore so many things.
Anyway, I just hope that my wedding will just be perfect as I want it be. But hey, what do you think about a mini wedding dress peeps?
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