BC Days: Spirit of the Sea

Monday is British Columbia Day. As far as I can tell from the government documents, they felt that a holiday was needed around August 1st, so hey, let's . . . um . . . honor the pioneers (yeah, that's the ticket) who helped make BC what it is today. It's not even the day BC entered into the confederation or anything. Of course, like any other holiday that falls on a Monday, this gets dubbed, "Long Weekend."

I'm not sure if it's entirely related to BC Day--I'm sure it's just piggy-backing on it--but White Rock (which is just a half-mile from us--the other side of 16th Ave is White Rock, the San Diego of California, or so I've been told) is having their annual (58th this year) Spirit of the Sea Festival (Friday night through Sunday--nothing on Monday). There's quite a lot going on, all along the beach: stuff for kids, vendors, concerts, skimboard competitions, parades, etc. We're invited by some friends from church to join them for watching the parade of lights tomorrow night (we're told we have to be there for supper in order to reserve our spot for the 9pm parade). So stay tuned for more pictures.

Anders and I spent a little time exploring the beach as the tide was going out. We did find a decent-sized red jellyfish (at least that's what we think it was; it was definitely gelatinous and round--there was a dead one in the sand, too--about Chicago softball size--we've only seen tiny ones about nickel size before). Plenty of people were in the water and on the sand, but it wasn't near as crowded as the promenade. And we could still hear the music from the stage. So we had that going for us.

Every town/village/city has it's celebration(s) across this continent. Community is important. We need to have our opportunities to come together and celebrate, have fun and maybe even get a little wild. But mostly, people yearn to belong, to be a part of something, to be connected. Why doesn't the church learn that a little better? After all, if there's a place to celebrate, it should be in God's presence, right? And if there's a place where fellowship is deep, authentic and inviting, it should be among God's people, right? We do fairly well, but we've got a ways to go to make this real (putting out some coffee and crackers should never be the full constitution of a "fellowship hour").


And onto the pictures:
1. Anders meets the beluga-man from the aquarium (he got a beluga tattoo--maybe we'll wear it to Iowa!)
2. One of the stages. This happens to be a Romanian folk-band, as far as I can tell. The were preceded by a nice little Irish band. The kid's stage was a whole other music scene
3. Friends from the community
4. Friends from church
5. The boys enjoying a bus ride back home (Thankfully we didn't have to drive and worry about parking. I actually walked down and met up with them when I got home from church this morning--but I definitely didn't want to walk back up the hill)