Seven naslovi

for example, adhere to different religions but have enough respect for
each other's spiritual journey to bridge the differences in your faiths.
But it is also true that a rewarding marriage is about more than
sidestepping conflict. The more you can agree about the
fundamentals in life, the richer, more meaningful, and in a sense
easier your marriage is likely to be. You certainly can't force
yourselves to have the same deeply held views. But some coming
together on these issues is likely to occur naturally if you are open to
each other's perspectives. A crucial goal of any marriage, therefore, is
to create an atmosphere that encourages each person to talk honestly
about his or her convictions. The more you speak candidly and
respectfully with each other, the more likely there is to be a blending
of your sense of meaning.
At our workshop Helen and Kevin were able to focus on the
spiritual side of their lives together by talking over some of the
questions you'll find later in this chapter. For the first time they spoke
earnestly about their own families, their family histories, values, and
symbols. When they returned home, Helen took out her family's old
photo album and showed Kevin pictures of her great- grandparents
who had come to America from Ireland. She told him the story she
had heard countless times about her great- grandparents' marriage--
how they had become engaged before her great-grandfather left for
America. He then remained true and devoted to her great-
grandmother during the four long years it took to save up enough
money to bring her over, too. The message of this story, she had come
to understand, was that loyalty is one of the backbones of marriage
and family life. Until now she had never expressed that to Kevin so
directly.
He himself reminisced about some of his own family's tales-
especially about his grandmother who singlehandedly ran a general
store in rural Kansas and almost went broke because she was always
giving away free food to poor neighbors during the Depression. The
townspeople all knew that she reserved a certain amount of her
goods for the town's needy families, who would come by ever'
Monday night at closing time. "My dad always said that we Mona
hans tend to be generous to the point of being foolish," he told Helen.