Community.

“We don’t have time to hang out with each other these days.  We’re too busy getting married to each other.”  This said at a moment of self-evaluation during a recent conversation with a group of guys.  It’s true, to a certain extent.  Starting this August, there are, by last count, eight weddings over the following twelve months in my immediate circle of friends (myself included, yes, I am getting married) and acquaintances, all with some sort of direct ties to our churches in Dover (Christ the King) and Portsmouth (Harbor).  Love is all around us.  We can’t have a conversation without talking about where so and so is going on their honeymoon, or did whats her name cry when she said yes, or did whats his face cry when she said I wish you hadn’t because I really don’t like you very much at all. (This last hasn’t actually happened).  

                The point is, this is a good year.  We get to see the promise of the people of God being fulfilled in Godly marriages left and right.  In the future we’ll wax nostalgic about the year of 2010-’11 when love was young and diamonds were sparkling.  But, the thing is, weddings take a lot of time and planning.  Sometimes (and I know most of us feel like this at some point or other) I am like Humperdinck when he’s marrying Buttercup at the climax of “The Princess Bride:” 

           
The Impressive Clergyman:  Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam.....and wuv, twue wuv, will fowow you foweva…so tweasure your wuv.

I wuv mawage almost as much as I wuv big hats.

Humperdinck:  Skip to the end.

The Impressive Clergyman:  Have you the wing?

Humperdinck: Man and wife. Say, man and wife.
The Impressive Clergyman: Man an’ wife.

            It helps to rule the whole country if you want to expedite your marriage plans.  And I truly don’t mind waiting and planning, because its 1)fun, 2)something that needs to be done right, 3)completely worth the wait (even though Dream Girl does periodically ask why we’re not eloping), and 4)a good time going to all my friends weddings to have fun in the meantime.  But sometimes I feel like for many in our church community, it can tend to be all wedding, all the time.  That was why I so appreciated going to my friend Jay I-dress-how-I-want-to-except-now-my-fiancée-buys-all-my-clothes Lawrence’s place to just hang out and watch football.  Because it was just us friends being friends.  Sometimes I think we get so busy with everything that the only time we really may end up spending with each other as a wider community is at our weddings.  I think it could be better than this.  I say this as a confirmed introvert.  I need to work on building community more than many others, because it doesn’t often come naturally to me. 

            An ideal community is made up of all sorts of people.  It’s made up of love (and we’re not just talking romantic love).  I don’t want to focus on marriage exclusively.  We need to always seek to grow our circles, I think, regardless of where we are in life. 

            For we are the people of God.  When two of God’s children get married, I believe it’s a fabulous, stupendous thing.  But it should enable us to draw together with the communities around us than the opposite.  Marriage isn’t an isolating thing.  The reason we don’t all run off and elope and get married by ourselves is really because a marriage isn’t about just the couple.  It’s about the whole larger community.  I cannot wait to be married.  I also cannot wait to continue to build a real working community with others, be they married or single, young or old, funny or non.  So tweasure your wuv, everybody.  Tweasure it.  And don’t forget to grow it however and whenever. I got my own dweam wifin a dweam coming up, and I can’t wait.  I also am really looking forward to having a beer with the guys later.  (Because said Dream Girl is ditching me to go watch chick flicks or get her face henna painted or something like that with all the girls.  So I gotta do something). 

I love Dover. No, I really do.

Dover has about two hundred hills. It’s true. You really only can tell when you walk through. Today I was walking. I walked down the hill to the end of my street. Up another hill to Central Avenue. Teetered on the top of said hill, looking down central avenue. Started down, picking up momentum. Passed the Café on the Corner. Lady sitting at a table outside, and I hear little bits of what must be a coherent conversation, but I only pick up various names: “Jane!...Lucy!...MARY.” Past the new Thai restaurant on my left, which has been advertising an AUTHENTIC AMERICAN BREAKFAST for the last month or so. The hill pulls me down. A man on a bike veers in front of me, coming to a quick and smooth dismount as he stops. Then he falls down. Now, coming straight for me, is a kid strolling along, playing the mandolin. Or the ukulele? What is the difference, captain, I ask. Not out loud. Wondering this to myself, as he sings along. Tralalalalala he sings. (Maybe not exactly. But it keeps with the traveling minstrel feel). Tralalalalalalalalalala! I like him. But now I’m gone, down past the jeweler’s where I bought an enormous diamond. Now to the bottom of the hill, where the mighty Cocheco river rolls majestically along to be stacked up against the dam across the street. Cross a couple of streets, and you start up another hill, past the smell of pizza from La Festa and the town hall and a sketchy bar and you come to my destination: Adelle’s, a little coffee shop midway up the next hill. Today it’s as far as my momentum took me. Adelle’s is the best coffee shop around. It’s got bumper stickers and organic vegan food and real metal spoons and folk music on the speakers and a communal sketch book which anyone can draw in whenever they want.
So here I am, sitting in a bay window seat, thinking about what the heck I was supposed to be writing? Hills, baby. Big ones, little ones, it doesn’t really matter. The thing is, they pack themselves into Dover like they weren’t allowed in the rest of the county or something. This gives Dover a curious kind of transient feel. Unlike other fairly large towns in the area (Portsmouth, for example), Dover has no large central park or square where people tend to gather to while away the hours. There’s just not enough flat space for something like that (the only flat space of any consequence in downtown is a parking lot). This means you see a lot of people passing through. They can’t stand or sit still for very long because if they do, they will fall down the hill. You might be able to catch a bit of a conversation here or there, but people are always going somewhere.
The music in Adelle’s is that well known classic, “I Aint Gonna Get Drunk No More.” It goes like this: “I aaaaiiiiiint gonna get druuuuuuunnnnnnk no more no I aaaaaaiiiiiiint gonna get druuuuuuunnnnnk no more.” Here comes the kid with the ukumandolele again. Maybe he’s singing I Aint Gonna Get Drunk No More. Tells you what he must have been up to last night. He’s probably on one long back and forth walk of shame right now. This gets me thinking: what if we all woke up tomorrow, grabbed guitars or fiddles or flutes and walked around town singing about what we did last night? It would make for some interesting listening.
(Here’s the part in the blog where I really truly run out of deep thoughts to say and start talking about nothing. It means it’s time to go).
Right captain. Backpack on, grab your guitar, sashay down the street. Today let’s sing that new hit, “I sat on the couch and watched some baseballllllll for a whillllllleee and then some travelllll channelllllllllll.” Maybe then, in some flat place in this up and down kind of town, we can get some people to stop for a spell.