In case of GROUP THERAPY

Hi, I’m Tricia.  And I’m a wedding addict.

(mumble mumble)

Hi, Tricia.

It has been…four minutes since my last geek out. 

(weak applause)

For most of my life, I didn’t care about weddings.  They were always the same awful things:  stuffy, boring, cheesy.  They were copies of copies of copies.  Tradition.  Formality.  They required uncomfortable clothes and uncomfortable conversations with distant relatives.

But then, in September, my sister got engaged.  And she started to plan.  That’s when I geeked out for the first time.  She sent me this link: www.stylemepretty.com.  And she told me that she was thinking of getting married in a barn.  A barn!  Good grief that’s cute, I thought.  So I clicked on the link and I saw that weddings could be beautiful.  Tradition?  Formality?  No.  Weddings could be classy.  Weddings could be THE GREATEST THING EVER.

Since then I’ve been geeking out every day.  My sister created this wedding blog of her own (http://writtenbliss.blogspot.com).  And now I pretty much live there.  She’s got all these pictures of up the adorable little brown paper envelopes she’s going to send her invitations in, and some really wonderful stories about guestbook conversations, and two perfectly GORGEOUS inspiration boards. 

Plus, I’m totally IN this wedding.  It’s not even that I’m going.  I’m the freaking MAID OF HONOR.  Which means that I get to stand there next to my beautiful sister in her good-grief-that’s-cute barn and hold a bouquet and everything.  And everybody – but everybody – we know and love is going to be there.  And since I realized that?  I’ve started geeking out at least once an hour.

I’m kind of ashamed to admit it.  But I can’t help it!  She designed this whole incredible monogram for the invitations and she bought this dress and now she’s sending me links with more amazing wedding blogs, like www.eluckyme.com and www.weddingbee.com, plus a whole host of other links for photography and cakes and decorations.  So what am I supposed to do? I’m wedding obsessed!  It’s all I want to talk about weddings to everyone!  All the time!

And the worst part?  I don’t even want to quit.  At all.

(shocked murmurs)

That’s right.  I’m not going to quit.

I've gotta go geek out.

Excuse me.  (leaves the podium)

In case of THINGS THAT ARE STILL TRUE

July.3.2007
For the beauty of the earth

There is so much grace in the world. It’s so funny to me how we are always given enough grace. Always.

I say that it’s funny because I think life is generally comedic. Even when it’s sad, there’s an element of humor, of joy, of promised restoration. Even when you feel so low. Even when you don’t know if a situation will end well. Even then.

I went to a wedding on Friday. Beth described the evening as “romantic,” which just happened to be the perfect adjective. We all stood on the front lawn, bare legs and shoulders, toes eased out of uncomfortable shoes. It was one of those firefly evenings, in spite of California.  The suspense of gold champagne in glasses, hovering between mouths and fingertips. The elderly and middle aged (their eternal moments still shining, but stuck in some previous era) gravitated toward the house, sat indoors on the antique furniture, discussed, I don't know.  Politics, maybe. Maybe marriage. I’d like to give them credit, knowing they were once us and that someday we’ll be them.

But we were not them on Friday. Almost everyone under the age of thirty draped themselves on the front porch, cotton and silk dresses flowing down from one stair to the next.  It was like -- I don't know -- a declaration to the world that we were standing on the brink, the edge, perched and ready for our chance, but still indulgent, enjoying one another while we could. Laughing.  The wonder was not then and will not be lost on us, not for years.

Even a wedding, which some might think is the end of being reckless, is heroic, epochal! How could anyone be so brave to love so deeply? How could anyone sit on the steps in the waning sun and laugh when we have lost wallets and keys, minutes and hours, built and burned bridges, inflicted and felt wounds? And some of us have lost friends. And some of us have lost faith. And some of us know that the house we’re sitting on will deteriorate, succumb to entropy, and that so many circumstances are, even now, not kind and not warm and not forgiving. How dare we dance, loop arms around waists, lick chocolate frosting off our fingers?

Why was I sent a quiet friend to sit with me, unjudging, when I have been so wrong? Why was I even allowed to hold the hand of someone I hurt so deeply?

Grace. Only grace.
There is so much grace in the world. 

In case of THE BODY SNATCHERS

I’m a different person. 

I’m not the person I was last year.  I’m not even the person I was last week.  I’m new. 

The girl who wanted so much to date Andrew (Andrew!), the girl so capricious and impulsive she had to enforce a Prohibition, the girl that went angry and embittered to a wedding on October 11^th?  Who WAS that?!?

I admit, I do bear a resemblance to her.  But our similarities are fleeting and shallow; they’re expressions we simply wear the same way.  It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except she’s the emotionless pod person and I am Becky.  I woke up and I’m Becky!  Alive and scared and in love!  I’ve been reverse body snatched!

(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimatably earth)

And here in this new world there’s Michael. 

And yes!  I know everything of all the reasons there “shouldn’t” be Michael!  I know of the complications – how neither one of us has a certain future or any money, how difficult long distance is, etc.  I know, too well, the width and depth of the Pacific.  And maybe down the road, in a month or two months from now, I will rue those complications and groan with how frustrating and difficult they make it all.

But today?  I just can’t.

Today I don’t care.  Today I couldn’t care less.  Today those things make me laugh, in a vague and amused way.

Today I want to run the road, banging on car hoods and screaming, “You’re next!”

(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

In case of NED KELLY

Argue all you like, but I maintain that there is nothing not to like about weddings.  Free food, awkward relatives, and love love love.  Even having to wear high heels can’t ruin a day like that.

PLUS.

There are Groomsmen. 

Where else would a girl like me ever get the chance to dance with a charming, tuxedo-clad Australian?  Go ahead and picture it.  The last dance of the night.  A slow dance.  And there I sit, single, wistful, a glass of gold sparkling cider in my hand.  Then a Groomsman begins to walk toward me through the glow of the twinkle lights and I’m in his arms almost before the invitation is even out of his mouth.  It was magical.

And did he turn out to be a Bootlegger (or, in his case, a Bushranger)?

No.

He turned out to be a wonderfully sincere gentleman.  And you don’t meet many of them these days. 

But if you’re looking, I recommend going to weddings.

My point is this.  There is no better place to celebrate life than a wedding.  There’s no better place to rejoice in a God who restores, who heals, who brings people together.  If you go to a wedding bitter, determined to hurt or feel resentment, you’ll only be met with love.  A wedding means that there’s hope in this world.  There’s hope.  A wedding is a lighthouse on an angry sea, a hand to hold, a shooting star.

So raise your glasses to Darren and Maureen.  This (!) has been a long time coming.  See, he’s a Star Wars Geek and she’s a Chronicles of Narnia Fanatic and they’ve now promised to take care of each other in sickness and in health and in all the nerdiness that will surely follow them for the rest of their lives.  I mean, they are just bound to have dozens of book-reading, cloak-wearing, light-saber-wielding Jedi children.  Seriously. 

AND.

Don’t be afraid to stand alone out there.  Because people are still getting married in this world. Because you never know when you’ll get asked to dance.

Weddings should make us all a little braver.