A Weekend to Remember
Saturday was one of those wonderful days. I was at a wedding.

It wasn't my own daughter's wedding, but it was as close as you can get.

We were back in Wisconsin which was home for fifteen years.

Back in 1984, when we moved in, there was this family the second house up the street. They had two children. One was a daughter, just a year older than our own 3 1/2 year old daughter. Over the next 15 years we became each other's family's second set of parents.

Over these years our two families along with the rest of our extended family-of-choice of the Watertown Moravian Church, helped each other through more ups and downs and slides and climbs than seems possible as we look back today. It was often more than just people who happened to be in the same church. Many times it was more than a pat-on-the-back. There were times we had to hold each other up when it seemed impossible to stand on one's own.Then, 5 1/2 years ago we moved to Minnesota and a new church. But you don't leave 15 years behind without a thought. Especially after so much together. And especially when God picks up the other family and moves them 25 miles down the road here in Minnesota. Not far from where our daughter now lives, also.

The family has continued. Jenn met Mike there and on Saturday they were married back at the church in Wisconsin with my wife officiating and our daughter in the wedding party. All kinds of "family" were around- biological, spiritual, and social.

It is hard to describe this to someone who has never experienced it, but it is a remarkable and awe-inspiring time. The hours of volunteering and support and care for the bride and groom so that their wedding was all they wanted it to be are a symbol of the greater work of this community and what we have meant to each other over the past 21 years.

I would like to think that this is a common experience. I hope and pray it is, but the response of people who watched this past weekend would say that it isn't. Spiritual community isn't about membership in a congregation. It is about membership in each other's lives- willingly, compassionately, and sacrificially. It is what Jesus called his disciples to be.

For me this past weekend was a reminder that just like at Cana in Galilee, Jesus turns the water of every day life and relationship into the sweet and wonderful wine of love and community.

Maybe that's why that was his first miracle. It sure does get your attention.

Pictures above:
Top: The wedding party in the front of the church.
Middle: The bride and groom with the pastor (my wife).
Bottom: Blowing bubbles is fun outside the church.