Post-Wedding FAQs, November edition

How's "married life"?

This has been, far and away, THE most frequently asked question over the past two weeks, which is awful because I don't have a quick answer, and I get the impression most people are looking for a quick answer. For a variety of reasons Alissa and I did not live together before the wedding, and so for me, part of "married life" has involved growing accustomed to having a permanent roommate living in what has, for the last ten years, been "my" space. While yes, I've had non-romantic roommates off and on before, never before has that involved someone whose "stuff" was co-mingled with mine. (Speaking of "stuffed", I am very happy that Alissa's stuffed animal moose, Thidwick, has come to live with me now, because he's quite cuddly and adorable :) And so embarking on this journey of sharing space and time and possessions and finances, is exactly that: a journey.

Largely, the past two and a half weeks have been consumed by post-wedding "todo"s, such as unwrapping multiple layers of tulle from the light strings we'd hung over the length of the gym, or putting away gifts, or adding Alissa to my credit cards and checking account and insurances, or dealing with change-of-address updates, and so on (by the way, to date, we have made progress on all, but completed none, of the aforementioned tasks). We also have appointments over the next several weeks to deal with updating my will (and creating one for Alissa), as well as meeting with financial advisors, and continuing couples therapy, which we've found immensely helpful in aiding us to communicate effectively and lovingly.

We also continue to stumble through figuring out what "routine" looks like anymore. As one comical example: we have different sleeping habits - she sleeps with the light on, which of course is just WEIRD; whereas I require absolute darkness to sleep. Morning routines are working okay so far, since I leave for work earlier than she does, and so we haven't experienced bathroom timesharing issues. And I was ecstatic that, even in week 1, on Wednesday night (aka Jeremy's "me night"), Alissa went from work to a coffee shop to church small group, giving me the evening to myself. As we'd agreed during budget negotiations, it is SO worth a $5 coffee for me to have that recharge time to myself.

And we're sort of falling into a frequent habit of making dinners together and watching part of a movie while we eat. Since Alissa's vegetarian, our joint cooking adventures are aided by my recent decision to begin minimizing meat in my diet to once per day, which typically has been lunch; this makes it easier for us to cook meals together in the evening. To clarify a common misconception: my decision to minimize meat is health-related and came after watching a documentary titled Forks over Knives; Alissa (while happy about my choice) had not attempted to sway me in either direction. But, because of my choice, she's introduced me to veggie bacon, which, as much as I can't believe I'm saying this, I actually find quite delicious. Om nom nom.

When are you going on your honeymoon?

Following the wedding reception we took a short (two night) vacation to the Outing Lodge in Stillwater, got back in time for church Sunday morning, but then took Monday off work so we could relax a little longer, and finish opening cards and presents. Since Alissa works in a school, taking extended time off during the school year isn't really viable, so we are planning a European odyssey for June. If I get my hopes, we'll spend a couple days at the start going to museums in Washington, D.C., which will have the added advantage of subtracting one hour off our jet lag. My other dream destinations include Scotland and Greece. While we don't have any specific plans yet, the general plan is that we'll take three weeks to do "all the things" in Europe. I'm sure that should be plenty of time.

What happened to all the sandwiches from the reception?

Instead of a dance, our reception guests made over 3200 sandwiches for Catholic Charities to distribute to people experiencing food scarcity, poverty, or homelessness. Aaron, my contact at Catholic Charities, tells me that all 3K sandwiches were distributed that same weekend, half at the Dorothy Day center, and the remainder by various partner organizations around town.

Check out my previous blog post for pictures of the sandwich making!

Did you raise enough money to pay for the sandwiches?

If you recall from my blog post a few days before the wedding, we had a small debacle regarding sandwich supply cost, for which I ended up spending an unexpected $1500 on meats and cheeses. A Thrivent Financial "Action Team" grant cut that cost by $250, and an incredible outpouring of generosity from coworkers and friends paid off another $1,000+!! As of this writing, our out of pocket expense remains only $167.54. I feel so blessed by all the support we've received.

Where can I see pictures of the wedding?

Huge thanks to Randy Baranczyk, our wedding photographer. I've posted the photos on my Facebook page. If you're not my friend yet, send me a friend request or an email!

What's in those MATTERboxes you handed out at the wedding?

We invited all our guests to take a MATTERbox (produced by local NGO MATTER, where my good friend and groomsperson Joe happens to work), which are small boxes filled with non-perishable food. The boxes are meant for handing out to panhandlers you might come across on street corners or freeway exit ramps. No one (not even Joe) is quite sure what's actually in the boxes, though, so I decided to open one up and document the un-boxing:

Disclaimer: this is simply the contents of one single box. Based on the varying weights between boxes, I'm pretty sure each box has a different adventure waiting inside.

I'd like to buy more MATTERboxes for myself or my organization! Who should I contact?

You should contact my buddy Joe at MATTER, who's in charge of the MATTERbox distribution!
Joe Newhouse
joe@matter.ngo
(952) 737-6093

Your reception food was amazing! Who was your caterer?

Short answer: Abi's Cafe in Minneapolis.

Longer answer: Months ago when we first started thinking about caterers, I wanted to find one with ties to either a shelter or food shelf, so the leftovers could go to people who really needed a good meal. In that search, I came across these news articles about Abi's Cafe: nydailynews, abcnews, and asked Alissa if we could go check out the restaurant for one of our date nights. We loved the food, and also loved the idea of supporting a local business, owned and operated by a young immigrant woman who was our same age. Abi worked so hard for us, and quite gracefully handled a lot of me asking "oh, can your staff do this, too?" She even closed her restaurant for our wedding day, so she and her staff could focus exclusively on us. We can't say enough good things about her, so if you're ever looking for some Salvadorian food, please drop by Abi's and tell her you heard about her from Alissa and Jeremy's wedding!

If I want to mail you a card, what salutations should I use? (a.k.a., what's Alissa's last name now?)

The answer surprises a lot of people, but it's actually quite simple: nothing has changed :) Alissa is still "Ms. Alissa Carsten", and I am still "Mr. Jeremy Gustafson". If you're addressing a card or package to both of us, we have no preference on whose name is listed first, so you can either address to "Jeremy Gustafson and Alissa Carsten," or, "Alissa Carsten and Jeremy Gustafson."

Now if you're thinking, "oh shoot! I sent you a card/check/package to 'Jeremy and Alissa Gustafson,'" it's okay, you weren't the only one, and I think all newly married couples need to have a lot of grace helping friends and family navigate the salutation issue, especially when doing something non-standard like we have. But now you know!

Do you REALLY have 850 Beanie Babies???!!!

Yep. And probably a few more. I have 828 Beanies (2 were wedding gifts :) and Buddies and Teenies that I've inventoried on my spreadsheet. I also have a box of several dozen unopened Teenie Beanies, still in their original McDonald's packaging (so that they're worth more :p ), bringing the total somewhere between 850 and 900.

Wedding Reception: The Sandwich Project

You may recall my previous blog post about the meat & cheese acquisition debacle. Well now it's time to share how it all turned out!

The support of my workplace in contributing to offset our costs was incredibly heartening, uplifting, and encouraging: we had a God-sized dream to pull this off at our reception, and God showed up (via coworkers wandering by my desk and throwing money at me) to help make it happen. I just need to share how incredible this is: I started with a $1,473 out-of-pocket expense for the meat and cheese; $250 was covered by a grant from Thrivent Financial, and now to date, I've received an additional $1,045 from co-workers and friends to help offset the cost, leaving my out-of-pocket at a mere $178. That, to me, is a "wow" moment.

I shared something related to this in my last post that I think is worth sharing again:

I've had three separate people offer me donations today because of my FB post. I've teared up each time.

I'm sharing this with you to say, *we* *are* supported. The unlikeliest people (well, and some likely ones, too) are stepping up and offering suggestions, tangible help, and even money, to help us do our sandwich making service project. And the ones who can't help (a few of the nonprofits/businesses I've called asking for donations) still say "what a neat and cool idea" to do instead of a dance.

Also, this is a practical lesson for me about what my Jesus Calling devotional has been talking about today and the past couple days: relying on God, rather than my own abilities. The idea of shelling out an un-budgeted $2000+ to make the sandwiches happen, was a bit overwhelming to me. Now money and help are coming out of the woodwork. God is providing. God is teaching me that God provides. God is teaching me that God works through people I wouldn't have expected God to work through. And it is beautiful.

At our reception a week and a half ago, the service project got off to a slightly bumpy start, largely due to my not-fully-thought-through logistics of distributing aprons and gloves. But once people got going, they really got going! We made over 3200 sandwiches in less than an hour, and everyone (at least seemingly) truly enjoyed the project. I and my family heard innumerable unsolicited comments about how much fun people had had, and how meaningful it was that Alissa and I would choose to spend our special wedding day focused on serving others.

In addition to the sandwich project, we purchased 300 MATTERboxes - boxes full of non-perishable foodstuff - and invited every guest to take one or more to then hand out to panhandlers they might encounter. This had the unintended, but wonderful, side-effect of sparking conversations among the church staff about considering a similar gift for their parishioners. As well, we hope by both the MATTERboxes and sandwich project, that we have not only encouraged our guests to consider the "outsider," the less fortunate, the outcast whom Jesus loves, but also pointed them toward God and a heart of service beyond just our wedding day.

Wedding Vows

In a few hours, Alissa and I will make some life-long promises to each other. As a lead-up to the big moment, I thought I'd share some backstory about our vow-writing.

(side-note: we realized yesterday during rehearsal that we never say the literal words "I do" anywhere in the service - hopefully the marriage will still be valid anyway!)

A couple months ago, I reached out to a long lost friend to ask her about a phrase I remember she and her wife had used in their vows. It was something to the effect of "until one of us breathes no more", and the specific way they had phrased it I remember thinking at the time was particularly beautiful, and so I wanted to plagiarize that one sentence in my own vow. Kathryn, who has always been wiser than I, took a few days to ponder my request, and then responded she was choosing to decline sending me that sentence. Instead, she encouraged me and Alissa to do something like what she and her wife had done in their own vow-writing process: visit a coffee shop, and while sitting on opposite sides of the room, contemplate what exactly they were wanting to promise each other, what was important in their relationship. Then after a while (an hour? more? depends on the couple), they came together and, in their case, merged their thoughts into one vow that they would both read.

Alissa and I liked this idea, and so we did our own version of it a week or two ago (though instead of combining, we are each reading our own unique vow). Alissa had written her first draft some months earlier on a sleepless night, but for me this was my first shot really focusing on what I thought I might say. Sitting in Dunn Brothers (they had buy-one-get-one-free that night, so Alissa got a black bitter water and I got something tasty), I went through numerous notes accumulated over years of attending weddings.

Sadly, the promise "I will never leave you in a zombiepocalypse" didn't make it into my final draft, nor did any Taylor Swift lyrics. I also couldn't find a place for my favorite quote from Boy Meets World: "I do my thing and you do your thing. You are you and I am I. And if in the end we end up together, it's beautiful."

At the end of writing, I think my only plagiarism was a phrase lifted from my friend Kayla's vows: "I promise to communicate with you and always work on improving our communication. I promise to listen well and actively." Since communication is something Alissa and I discuss frequently, this seemed fitting.

The rest of my words were largely "Jeremy-isms," such as love being a choice, and my long-held believe that saying "I love you" also means acknowledging, "I will eventually cause you hurt." I also included a generic, though I think poignant, line about holding each others' hands in the doctor's office. Neither of us is sick right now, so it's not anything to panic about. But it comes from this story: years ago, as I prayed to God about a different relationship, I had a mental vision of the woman I loved coming home to me from a doctor's appointment, looking me in the eye, and me instantly knowing without her saying any words, that the test had come back as cancer. God asked me, "if this were to happen, would you love her and care for her even through that journey?" I've always held that in the back of my mind as one of my definitions of "love." And so the doctor's office in my vow may be referencing that, or it may be if we need to visit a fertility clinic for either one of us, or it may be me getting my next colonoscopy (coming up in February/March, oh yay :/ ), or who knows what. As I said it's generic, but for me, powerful in that generality.

The other big one for me is a single word I tucked into this phrase: "I promise I will be yours alone, faithful to you physically, visually, and emotionally." When hearing the word "affair" most people probably assume a physical affair, though in recent years I would say our society has become more open to acknowledging such a thing as an emotional affair, as well, even if it never becomes physical. Going beyond these two, it was as important to me to promise Alissa I would not have an affair with my eyes, either. Like most human males, my sexuality is turned on by visual stimuli, and I live in a culture where it is very difficult to avoid hyper-sexualized print-advertisements, television, movies, etc. Thinking back to a book I read years ago called "Every Man's Battle" (at least, I think that was the book; might have been "Every Man's Marriage" in the same series), the authors discuss "bouncing the eyes" away from provocative ads - as they allege, this "starves" the mind of any sexual arousal other than one's wife, which in turn makes her even more attractive because your mind isn't caught up comparing her to billboard and magazine models. Alissa and I have had some good conversations around this point, but even if we'd never discussed it, I would still have wanted to include the promise in my public declaration.

And lastly, on a less-heavy note, there are a few light-hearted "laugh points" as I call them. For example, "I promise I will try to solve all your problems, and then afterward remember that sometimes you need me just to listen instead of act." If you happen to read this blog post pre-wedding, you have my permission and encouragement to laugh/chuckle/giggle/make a random noise at that point during the vows, because while it is truth, it's also meant to be amusing.

---

Alissa,

Love is an emotion, and love is a choice. I have told you I love you in my heart; today I promise to choose to love you every day.

Love is a double edged sword, because saying “I love you” is also promising “I will say and do things that hurt you.” I will make selfish decisions, and we will have fights. Knowing I cannot promise we will have a strife-free relationship, I will instead promise to be there every time to work through the conflict and hurt.

I promise to communicate with you, and to work continually on improving our communication. I promise to listen well and actively. I promise I will try to solve all your problems, and then afterward remember that sometimes you need me just to listen instead of act.

I promise to learn how to make you coffee, to wake you up on mundane days. I promise I will have fun with you, to bring joy into our adventure together. I promise to be your cheerleader when you feel overwhelmed by your career, graduate schooling, or life’s unpredictable doses of chaos. I promise to hold your hand in the doctor’s office while we wait for test results. I promise to respect you and cherish you. I promise I will be yours alone, faithful to you physically, visually, and emotionally. And I promise to encourage you, and challenge you to grow, in your faith walk and relationship with God.

These promises I make from this breath forward, until one of us breathes our last.

Wedding prep insanity, or, "the meat and cheese debacle of '16"

As you may have read in previous wedding-related posts, instead of a dance at our wedding this Friday, Alissa and I will be hosting a service project for our guests to make 3000 sandwiches for distribution this winter to people experiencing homelessness and food scarcity.

Originally, I had been told we would be getting deli meat, cheese, and bread for pennies on the dollar, so I [mistakenly or not] did not budget for this expense. Unfortunately, a week ago (just 11 days before the wedding) I found out my source's source for mass quantities of those steeply-discounted products had dried up and was no longer available.

Thus began the most stressful week I've had in over four years (sadly I do remember the last time I was this close to a nervous breakdown), and yet at the same time it has also been a week full of watching God at work.

Last Wednesday morning, I posted a plea on Facebook, and also to our internal office email list, explaining my plight, and asking if anyone had suggestions for where I might source 400 pounds of meat and 130 pounds of cheese* for the sandwich making.

To say I was blown away by the response would be an understatement. By day's end, two dozen coworkers had replied with advice/suggestions/leads, as had half a dozen friends on FB. But what humbled me even more, were replies of people expressing their desire to contribute money to help defray my unexpected costs. First was an acquaintance from my filmmaking days years ago, followed shortly after by a friend I haven't seen in probably almost a year (and whom I'd forgotten to even invite to the wedding, oops! [that has been fixed now, and he's attending]). The amount of networking happening fell simultaneously into the realms of awesome/hilarious/kinda-crazy, as, for instance: one coworker called his cousin at a meat factory who talked to his manager who then talked to their VP, trying to get some donations worked out. Another called a long time friend who used to own a shop who was going to call the new owner. And another coworker put me in touch with his wife who runs a restaurant and so has access to the Restaurant Depot, which is basically Sam's Club on steroids. I kept thinking of that old joke about "I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy...".

The reality was I had too many suggestions/leads and too few hours to follow through on them myself (remember, I still had other wedding-related tasks on my plate, too!). Acknowledging to myself my own time deficit, I reached out to the wife of one of my close coworkers to ask if she'd be willing call around on my behalf, and so she spent an entire afternoon+evening last week calling various stores and non-profits, trying to find me meat and cheese donations. As the week went on several other friends and coworkers helped in this endeavor, as well. There were so many options in flight it was quite the mental exercise trying to keep everything straight.

In the midst of all this efforting (which for me was extremely exhausting and draining), the easy thing to do would have been give up and say we'll not do the sandwich making project after all. But my stubbornness, and if I may be so bold: the feeling that God was backing us up in this sandwich adventure, kept me from giving up. Instead, I allowed myself to feel the support of Community, all of whom wanted to see us succeed in doing Good (capitalizations deliberate).

Over the next days at work, I was asked frequently if I'd gotten my meat issue solved yet. As I explained my predicament (lots of leads, haven't had time to follow through on all of them, still likely that I'll have to end up purchasing from Sam's Club simply because in-kind donations require longer lead times than the one single week we had), I was continually blown away as more and more coworkers offered, "if you end up needing contributions, I'd be willing to donate some money." It was humbling, and heartening, and reaffirming. As I wrote to Alissa in the midst of this all:

I've had three separate people offer me donations today because of my FB post. I've teared up each time.

I'm sharing this with you to say, *we* *are* supported. The unlikeliest people (well, and some likely ones, too) are stepping up and offering suggestions, tangible help, and even money, to help us do our sandwich making service project. And the ones who can't help (a few of the nonprofits/businesses I've called asking for donations) still say "what a neat and cool idea" to do instead of a dance.

Also, this is a practical lesson for me about what my Jesus Calling devotional has been talking about today and the past couple days: relying on God, rather than my own abilities. The idea of shelling out an un-budgeted $2000+ to make the sandwiches happen, was a bit overwhelming to me. Now money and help are coming out of the woodwork. God is providing. God is teaching me that God provides. God is teaching me that God works through people I wouldn't have expected God to work through. And it is beautiful.

Un-relatedly, a day or two before this chaos began, I'd started keeping a gratefulness journal - writing down (aka typing into a Google Spreadsheet) at least one thing each day for which I was grateful. My spreadsheet was soon being filled with sandwich-related gratefulnesses as more and more people not only affirmed me, but then offered to do what they could to help. For instance Monday morning arriving to work, I hadn't even made it to my desk yet and a coworker handed me a check from him and his wife, because they both believed in our project and wanted to support us.

As I mentioned I (and many others) poured a lot of energy into solving this, including coordinating a trip to price-check meats & cheeses at the Restaurant Depot (huge thank you to Agnes and Keith!), figuring out if we bought the unsliced meat there, where I could slice it and how much that would cost ($1/pound is the answer, turns out), how much time that would take, all the logistics of refrigeration between now and Friday, etc. My contact from Catholic Charities (who will be taking/distributing the sandwiches) also spent hours on the phone talking with me, various Sam's Clubs, possible in-kind donors, and so on.

In the end, even though many vendors would have loved to help, the reality became that there wasn't enough time to clear all the approvals or even to physically ship the necessary quantity of meat and cheese we needed. So, yesterday, Aaron met me at Sam's Club in Eagan, and we loaded up two shopping carts FULL of 399 pounds of ham & turkey, and 130 pounds of cheese.

Now when I say "loaded up," I mean we cleaned them out of two different meat products and half their stock of a third, in order to get all 400 pounds (and it turns out trying to math when you're tired is hard! I don't know how many times we had to re-count the meat in our carts). We had a manager digging out meat from behind the refrigeration units and pushing it through the fridge door to us, while we loaded the carts from the customer-facing side of the fridge. We talked with another manager, who agreed to give us a $25 discount in order to price match website price of the cheese from another Sam's Club (funny side-story: she radioed up to the front to tell the checkout mangers that "two men with a lot of meat and cheese will be coming you way in a minute..."). And when we were pushing the carts from the fridges in the back of the store up to the checkout, we got a healthy dose of strange looks from passers by :)

To anyone and everyone who would listen, I told them Alissa's and my story about wanting to do this 3000-sandwich service project at our wedding reception. The poor cashier who got stuck with ringing us out (193 items total), thanked me, multiple times - I don't know her story, but hearing about our project really touched her and I think made an uplifting difference in her day. She also told me that we were the second largest purchase she'd ever seen come through her line at Sam's.**

While we were ringing out, another manager came up and asked Aaron, "are you the guy I talked to on the phone earlier about the meat?" When I explained what we were doing, she got a little misty eyed and asked, "that's really amazing. Can I hug you?" We both gave her a big hug.

Roughly an hour after arrival, we'd loaded all the meat and cheese into Aaron's Catholic Charities van, and he left to put it into their refrigeration units. At long last, my week of endless efforting had a resolution. At long last, my elevated resting heart rate could return to normal.

Some thoughts and reflections. At first I thought I needed to find in-kind donations, grocery stores willing to give us 10 or 20 pounds of meat here and there, in order to minimize financial cost. In retrospect, I think the week was more a lesson about the love and support of Community. While it would certainly have been nice to get all the meat and cheese for free, I think I spent a lot more time and energy than I should have, trying to pursue that. Had I last Wednesday instead decided, "this is unfortunate, but I'm just going to go to Sam's Club and take care of it," I could have spared myself a lot of stress.

At the same time, in the midst of that stress, I kept listening to two particular songs over and over. In the first (a particular live rendition of "King of My Heart"), the singer improvises some prayers in the middle of the song, and sings full of joy that "He's come to overwhelm the thing that's overwhelmed you this morning." That encouragement kept me going in the middle of my most stressed-out days. A reminder and acknowledgement that God's got this. Not just a platitude of "God's got a plan" or something trite like that. I truly saw tangible reassurances that God was working in this thing I called a "debacle," and when I thought about how many people were helping alongside, how could I not see God's providence in that? This related strongly, I think, to the second song that kept coming back to mind: "God is on the move." Wednesday Thursday and Friday last week, I basically kept these songs on repeat on my headphones, because even in the extreme stress, I still believe in their Truth.

---

* These poundage numbers are corrected here from my original Facebook and email estimates.

** UPDATED: Our total cost at Sam's was $1472.54. Of this, $250 was paid for by an "Action Team" grant from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. $25 was discounted from Sam's Club management as described above. Another $495 was paid for by contributions from friends and coworkers. And at our wedding, an additional $370 was gifted to us for this project. If you feel so led and would like to contribute toward offsetting the remaining $332.54, please let me know!

Wedding FAQs, October edition

Are you getting excited?

Sure? Right now we are both fairly stressed with how many "to-dos" we have left to turn into "been-dones", that it's hard to feel excitement (or any other emotion, other than stress). I'm more excited for life together after the wedding, which is probably a good thing. Like I wrote in June, I hope our wedding day isn't the best day of my whole life!

How is planning going?

If I can manage to wrestle my emotions out of the way, honestly we're doing pretty well. As I'm sure everyone else has experienced with any major project, every detail feels like the most important thing in the moment. For instance, two weeks ago I was panicking over what we would do for trash bins. Reality check: if 5 weeks before your wedding you can devote energy to panicking about rubbish bins, you're probably in a good place.

On a related note, though, I do have a pet peeve I'd like to get off my chest. Many folks, in an effort to be helpful, have offered the advice "remember to enjoy this time of life," or, worse, "remember to just keep it simple!" While I reserve the right to change my mind on this later, for now I remain convinced these people have either never been involved in planning a wedding, or it's been so long since they did, that they've forgotten just how not-simple even the most simple wedding is. In an effort not to get angry at truly well-meaning friends and family who say such things, I choose to interpret their remarks as instead saying "I care for you, and I'm thinking of you, and I'm excited for you, therefore I wish you less-stressful times as you deal with what will be one of the most stressful times in your life."

A similar sentiment, though one I do actually agree with, is "it'll all get done. Or it won't, and it won't matter, because at the end of the day you'll be married and that's what matters." I think that sentiment is much more useful (though if you're someone saying this, I'd appreciate if you'd be willing to tack on one more line: "what can I do to help?"). This reminds me to have another look at our wedding mission statement that we drew up 6 months ago, to inspire and calm us in times when we found ourselves mired in details: "Joining together our two lives, celebrating with our community of family and friends, and focusing on God, service, and social responsibility."

What does social responsibility look like for your wedding?

Okay fine, once again I'm including an alleged "FAQ" that no one's ever actually asked. But I want to answer it anyway, because these details are particularly important to me.

All our plates, cups, and flatwear are compostable, in order to bring us as close as possible to a no-trash wedding (and reduce water consumption from not having to wash dishes). Instead of a dance we will be hosting a service project to make sandwiches for people experiencing poverty and homelessness this winter. For decorations, we are borrowing as much as possible, and buying as little as possible (aka financial stewardship). We won't be using balloons because of their environmental impact, and for the ceremony we will ask our guests to pull up the program on their smartphones, to save on paper. We have chosen vendors who (to the best of our knowledge) are GLBTQ-friendly. And our caterer is a locally-owned restaurant on Lake Street, Abi's Cafe, whom I found after a news story months ago about the owner (Abi) going out of her way to hire a panhandler, rather than giving him a free hand-out. (and, their food is delicious - I highly recommend checking the cafe out if you're local!).

Lastly, though we do have a registry for tangible gifts, we are asking our guests to consider instead donating to one of the charitable organizations we support:

• One 2 One Mentoring
• Malala Fund
• Hope Academy
• Hope 4 Youth
• Union Gospel Mission

When and where will you be going on your honeymoon?

We'll be going to Europe (all of it, all the things!) in summer 2017. Exact details are TBD until after the wedding planning chaos has wrapped up, but if you have suggestions of sights to see (or not see) in Europe, please let us know! This is your invitation for offering unsolicited advice :)

What will the Ring Bear be wearing?

A baby tuxedo from Target. Mr Bear will be looking quite dapper.

Mr. and Mrs. Last Name

If you'll recall, I recently got engaged.

One of the conversations Alissa and I had rather early on in our relationship was about last names, and how, at so many weddings, I objected to the concluding phrase, "I now present, for the first time ever, Mr. and Mrs. His-First-Name His-Last-Name." I objected because the woman, who often was my friend or relative - aka the reason I was attending the wedding - had been reduced to the name of "Mrs." I recall attending a wedding with my friend Jessie, and when the "Mr. and Mrs." pronouncement was made we both groaned to each other, "and there it is."

Alissa saw my point, but stated in no uncertain terms that if we got married, she'd want to take my last name and be introduced as "Mr. and Mrs. Last-Name." Her reason was to form a new identity as a couple, separate from her former life as an individual. Frantically I explained to her that if I did that at my own wedding, Jessie would never forgive me! She retorted, "who would you rather have upset at you, your friend Jessie or your wife?"

Toss-up.

Fortunately, Alissa has since changed her opinion about taking my last name (she realized she actually likes her last name, and doesn't want to go through all the legal hassles of changing something she likes), and now plans on keeping her own, so I've managed to escape the trap! Jessie can be happy with me, as can Alissa.

Whew!

Have I?

Half my lifetime ago, history happened. Rather than write my personal story of that day, I think it's more important to ask some challenging questions:

If I call myself a follower of Jesus, the same Jesus who says "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," have I truly lived that? Have I prayed for the hijackers who, 15 years ago, following the rhetoric of men who had twisted the peaceful message of Islam for their own destructive means, also lost their lives alongside their victims? Have I prayed for their families who, whether they perceive their loved ones joyfully as martyrs or mournfully as victims, have in both cases still lost someone they loved? Have I prayed for the thousands of victims who have died in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world as a result of my own country's acts of terroristic violence, air raids, invasions? Have I prayed for the leaders, followers, and families of ISIS? Have I written to my legislature asking for saner foreign policies that don't involve dropping bombs, which inevitably kill civilians, therefore inciting more fires of radicalism? Have I reached out to the Muslims in my local community to say, "you are welcome here. You, and Islam, are not my enemy"? Have I in fact done anything to help promote peace, understanding, camaraderie?

This is what's on my mind today.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Sermon - Part of Jacob's Well's Godflix Series 2016

Each summer Jacob's Well does a series of sermons about movies (we call it "Godflix"), and this year I got to give a sermon about Star Wars!!! As an über-nerd who fell in love with Star Wars at a young age (and also fell in love with some fictional Star Wars characters, like Jaina Solo), having an opportunity to share some theological thoughts about the saga was an incredible honor. Thanks to Jacob's Well-er Nate who brought his camera to video me, and special thanks to Greg and Chris for brainstorming with me and helping me feel more confident that I had something worthwhile to say.