the person leading the service says the first two lines and last two lines of the prayer out loud, to sort of keep everyone vaguely on track, but mostly, each person prays on his or her own, just in the same room as a lot of other people doing the same thing.

That sounds really, really cool. I think I'd like that.

I Camilla, take thee, Charles Arthur George Whatever, to be my lawfully wedded tampon.

Cindy, I had totally blocked that out of my mind.

Time to find the brain bleach.

I hope the man and his sanitary product will be very happy.

He wanted to be the sanitary product. That's the thing. I don't really care about the adulterous period span of their relationship. But if someone makes you want to be a tampon, um...Well, actually, I don't care about them at all. And hey, maybe Camilla will have some luck keeping Harry out of Nazi garb.

Yuck. I love learning stuff, honestly, but there are still many things I'd rather Not Know.

What always intrigued me about the whole Charles/Camilla thing is that we normally think of the husband cheating on the somewhat plain, middle-aged woman with the younger, glamorous woman. It's interesting to see that whole dynamic turned around.

and who was paul addressing?

Paul was addressing the specific early Christian communities to which he was writing. Like, Corinthians -- written to the early Christian community in Corinth. Ephesians -- to the community in Ephesus. And so forth. It would be, more or less, like him writing to St. Andrew's Episcopal church, or Holy Name Catholic church, etc., today.

tampon? WTF?

I don't give very much of a stuff about the Royal Family, but I think it's nice that they're getting hitched. The Charles/Diana marriage was, as far as one can gather, a case of him having to get wed and beget sprogs and basically going ahead and marrying a nice young woman of good family who didn't have any ex-lovers hanging around to create a scandal. As bases for marriages go, it's not the best - but infinitely worse for them in that they were living under such enormous press scrutiny 24/7. They do not appear to have been particularly well suited, and evidently neither of them was happy in the match. I actually think it's rather nice that he continued to be in love with this older, much less glamorous woman. I have no particular interest in either of them, nor do I wish to be privy to any of their intimate secrets, but I wish them both well in a vague 'good for you' kind of way.

I was just coming in to wish Charles and Camilla the best. And I'm sure Edward VII (is it VIII?) is jealous as anything wherever he is.

we normally think of the husband cheating on the somewhat plain, middle-aged woman with the younger, glamorous woman. It's interesting to see that whole dynamic turned around.

Yeah. The whole thing makes me feel vaguely sorry (not THAT sorry, because they made the choices that created the situation, and he is a future king and all, but still slightly so) for all three of them -- Charles probably would have been much happpier if he had just married the person he wanted, instead of the person who fit the right image, and Diana would have been happier if she was married to some Lord Whoziwhatsis herself.

Also, re: yesterdays discussion -- first, I'm sorry for flouncing off. It was time for me to take a break.

Second, I told my husband about the conversation when I got home (there may have been a touch of ranting) and Patrick laughed and said "Welcome to my world." I think Catholicism looks different from inside (even if you only have one foot in the door, like me, or consider yourself an atheist, like Patrick) than outside. Which will make me stop and think the next time I'm tempted to be judgmental about Southern Baptists, anyhow.

(Though, just to tie a bow on the discussion, it is worth pointing out that the more extreme "purity" movements in the U.S., including the ones Steph and Susan were involved with, are Protestant.)