BEACH NUPITALS

the pics above and below are from my roommate chelsea's wedding. it was the first beach wedding i've ever attended, and while i had my doubts about how exactly it would work, it turned out to be quite lovely. we had to deposit our shoes in a big pile a little ways off from the makeshift "aisle" (crafted by some white tooling and little green garden posts), and both the bride and the groom wore white. the justice of the peace who married them said we could all move in closely, and the forty or so guests in attendance jumped at that offer, crowding up to the bride and groom like they were rock stars performing a concert. it was outrageously humid outside, but i think withstanding the humidity was worth it to get the pictures they got. it was like the set of a movie - blue skies, rolling ocean waves, white sand ... it's painfully cliche, but TRUE! after the wedding, we partied at Captain Hiram's, which is one of those open-air waterfront seafood places that has become a stereotype of itself, but provided a relaxed atmosphere, tropi-drinks, a live jazz band, and a nice view of the inter-coastal waterway. the whole experience was great fun, and it made me wonder why women tend to kill themselves planning their weddings. chelsea's didn't feel like it was lacking anything, and yet, she planned it in under two months and didn't have to sell her soul to pay for it.

post-wedding existance has been fairly droll ... my roommate karen and i are putting off cleaning up our trashed house and dreading chelsea's return, when she will have to say good-bye to her husband for a year, as he's being shipped to afghanistan to serve in the military.

the only big news of this week so far is that i finally got my florida driver's license (after living in this state for almost two years - don't tell the po-po), so i guess i'm official. the process took two hours, as the license first read that i was a male. which i'm not. why are driver's license places always so busy? i probably watched 200 people come and go. you'd think people would get their driving biznass taken care of and there'd be at least a couple slow days. no. it's probably because they write on women's driver's licenses that they're men, and then women, who were once very patient, cooperative people, have to get back in line, wait for another 30 minutes, go through the whole picture-taking process again, and feel severely tempted to climb over the counter and strangle slow-moving and chatty employees.

BECAUSE WE'RE HOT...

BIBLE STUDY/BACHELORETTE PARTY

after all the whining i did in the last post, it's really pretty embarassing to admit how much connection i've experienced over the last few days.

thursday - girls bible study. this is an endeavor i started in order to get to know the girls in my college/career group at church. since i came in as philip's girlfriend, i figured that's how i was known. i was like an extension of him, and whenever i was with any of the girls (who were his friends long before he and i ever met), he was there. so, i created a time when we could bond guy-free. it started out with a fair amount of momentum; we had five at our first meeting, including a very curious woman from another church, and in the meetings since, we've had two other girls join us. but attendance is random; there's just not a lot of commitment. some of this i attribute to myself - in my efforts to not add another item to the "to-do" list, i've established a casual attitude that has crossed over into even merely showing up. plus, i haven't been using any sort of book/guide, since all the guides i considered using were lame, but i do a lousy job of thinking up any sort of DIY guide, so the discussion often falls flat. and we only meet every other week, so i think people get confused about if we're even having it or not. however, despite these considerable errs on my behalf, the women themselves haven't stepped it up to do their own studying, to find out if we're meeting, or to come on a consistant basis. it's all very discouraging.

we had planned to meet this past thursday at a pair of sisters' apartment, and i just had this feeling nobody would show up. i didn't feel like preparing anything, and said so to philip. "it's just not worth it," i told him. "why not?" he asked, and i was humbled, knowing he was right - even if it was just the sisters and me, they were worth preparing for. so i prayed about what passage to use (we've been studying women of the bible), and i immediately thought of the woman who anointed Jesus' feet and decided we'd do a little lectio divina. basically, this involves reading the passage out loud twice and asking God to reveal a word from the passage to you that He would like you to meditate on for 10 minutes. Ten minutes may sound like a very long time, and it is, but it really slows you down and allows you to relax and breathe. we're so uncomfortable with silence; i think it's healthy to force ourselves to be quiet once in a while. i also picked out some praise choruses centering on Jesus' sacrifice on the cross (surprisingly, there aren't that many) and figured we'd do a time of "checking in." this involves each person telling how they are - how they really are - and while they're sharing, no one else is allowed to say anything.

i headed over to the apartment, and i was right - nobody else came. it was just the three of us. but i proceeded with my little contemplative plan. we did the lectio divina, and i wondered at maybe shortening the time to five minutes. but God said no, do the full 10, so i did. my word was "weeping." i thought of all the reasons why people weep - joy, pain, disappointment, beauty, stress - and i thought of how Jesus even wept. words came into my head - expression, release, honesty. when someone cries, their soul is coming the surface. then we "checked in." i hesitated to even do it, since we had already chit-chatted earlier about our weeks and jobs and so on, but God said do it, so we did. when each sister shared, she started to weep. common themes came out - a lack of confidence, a feeling of uncertainty about the future, being in a difficult time of waiting, hurts that are hard to forgive. i was amazed at what came out when there was a concentrated and safe time of sharing. i think we all left that night feeling much closer than we did before, and i felt like i had a better idea of where this study needed to go. God knows what He's doing.

friday - chelsea's bachelorette party. this was also something i wasn't too amped about, just because i was feeling tired and sickish and i didn't know any of the girls coming very well, except my roommates. however, the evening really ended up kicking ass. we were all given goodie bags, which contained such goodies as leis, jelly bracelets, star-shaped sunglasses, candy necklaces, a personalized decorated cup, penis straws, and other trinkets. a tip for any girl planning a bachelorette party: give your attendees goodie bags. nothing makes you feel like you're wanted there like having a bag full of presents with your name on it waiting for you. we all donned our many items and took loads of pictures. we even wore them out, which set us apart as THE bachelorette party - where the party is. we also played some typical bachelorette party games, which involved cherries and whipped creme and bananas and condoms. gotta have those. we rode in a limo to our downtown destinations. i can't tell you how many times i heard, "where's erika?" or "erika, get in this picture!" i felt included, loved, appreciated. and chelsea was practically weeping tears of joy over how appreciated and loved she felt. "i've never gotten so much attention in my life!" she exclaimed. she deserved every minute of it.

saturday - discipleship group. this is a collection of couples and individuals from our church, including one of the pastors and his wife, who get together about once a month to discuss some topic and learn from each other and our various stages in life. philip and i are the youngest couple there, which our mentors, danny and jodi, being the oldest. we discussed what it means to worship "in spirit and in truth," why we go to church, how one goes about picking a church, etc. i was pretty floored by how much interest people there had in me, what i had to say, our Something More group, where i worked... the discussion was thought provoking, and it was hugely cool to meet people from our church who don't land in the 18-34 category.

today - chelsea's wedding. i have to go get ready for it now. it's on the beach, and i borrowed a white strapless dress with giant pink hawaiian flowers on it to wear. philip's computer assignment for his grad class was due tomorrow, but the due date got extended till wednesday, so we're in great moods. this should be another beautiful day.

TRUE COMMUNITY

the last couple days at work, i've been editing a book called The Relevant Church: A New Vision for Communities of Faith. The book contains essays by a variety of leaders in churches who can be described by words like "progressive," "culturally relevant," "emerging," "postmodern," etc. etc. etc. those terms actually make me want to gag, but the book is worth reading and has spurred a lot of thought on my part about what church is about, and if myself and the little group with whom i try to be the church on a local level are hitting the mark at all. one overriding theme is that being the church is integrated. that's a fancy way of saying it's a part of my everyday life. i'm not being the church just on saturdays (my church meets on saturday mornings). i am the church when we get together and eat, when we get together and play, when we get together and talk or serve or whatever. this is pretty tricky, as i live a minimum of 30 minutes away from anybody who i'm friends with who also loves Jesus. eating, playing, talking, and serving as a loving group becomes a major chore, involving phone calls and planning ahead and money for gas. extending hospitality to my friends is entirely inconvenient, as people find it to be a major pain to come out to my suburban dwelling in the obscure small florida town of oviedo. the book also talks about, as the church, creating art and praying in creative spaces and eating lunch with homeless people and having stimulating conversations in coffeehouses with both those who have a relationship with Christ and those who don't. these things do not go on in my life. creating art, for me, is writing, which happens once a month over my lunch hour if i'm lucky. if i want to visit a prayer room, i need to set aside an extra hour+ for the drive time. i make excuses for why i can't spend time with "the least of these brothers," and the only coffeeshop near me is barnie's, which - no offense to my roommates who used to be employed there - is suburban and generic and wedged into an overgrown strip mall across from the cineplex 16, and is anything but the environment to spir enlightening conversations about politics and faith and other cultures and the latest independent film showing in town. i sound pretentious, but maybe i'm actually worse than pretentious, because i don't ever actually watch indie films or vote, but i wish i did. anyway, i've been fascinated by the lives of these pastors who wrote in Relevant Church, how seamlessly it all seems to weave together for them, and i'm envious.

but, i've got to give myself some credit. last night, my wonderful, beautiful friend tara and i lapped the (under construction) lake at Crane's Roost, talking about God's will and fears about marriage and insecurity and the past and the future. so for one night, i was being the church in a fairly inspiring place (while Crane's Roost is pretty much a glorified retention pond, it has a nice walking path, and there's a pile of birds; wildlife improves any setting). meanwhile, philip was actually watching an indie film in a quirky downtown theater, and then watching an indie band play. so maybe we're not as far from where we want to be as i usually think we are. i think the solution to all these (fake) problems must be to move to the city. i need to get on that.