Immaculate Sinners, meet the Solstice Celebrants.

Giant buildings to attract tourists, amazing coffee, farmers markets and coops throughout the city, small business cashiers who don't glare when you just come in to ask for change, exquisite cupcakes, great radio stations, a little neighborhood just for hipsters (apparently, the general public really doesn't enjoy the crusty mustache).... Seattle: a great city.

As today is our final day in the wonderfully rainy city of Seattle, a little recap is in order. So here we go....

Thursday: After about ten hours in transit from Boston to Seattle, and after about 2 hours of negotiating our car rental, we finally made it to Maggie's apartment and were able to catch our breath. The three of us went out to dinner and Susan met up with us, giving us a general survey of the city before we embarked on our first interviews the next day.

Friday: Intense yet illuminating, Friday was full of interviews. We had our first interview with G DeCastro, the Director of Liturgy (in Campus Ministry) at Seattle University. We had never done an interview before, and he was very gracious as we worked through the kinks in our process. He offered fascinating insight to the worship life of students at the University.

Afterward, we booked it from the University down to Pike's Place Market and trolled around a bit - it's a packed place full of incredible smells (bakeries, chocolate, flowers, and FISH). Susan then took us to meet her friend, Kimberlee, who is an elder in Bethany Presbyterian Church. She served a few years ago as the elder for Christian Education.

In the course of conversation with Susan afterward, Katie mentioned something about a charismatic Presbyterian organization run by her uncle. Susan perked up, and it turns out that PRMI Dunamis project was instrumental in the life of Bethany Presbyterian. Turns out Susan had met Katie's uncle, too. Small world!

Susan then took us on a tour of Queen Anne (where Bethany is situated), and then we walked down to Fremont - a crazy neighborhood with a giant troll under the brigde and an awesome stringed instrument store.

Our final interview of the day was with a small church named Church of the Undignified. They meet on Capitol Hill on 21st ave, over by Central Cinema on Sunday mornings. We met them on Friday night at their Healing House, which is just down the street. It's an intimate young congregation with (adorable) young children. They gather on Friday to pray together and pray for the direction of their church. We had the opportunity to attend their prayer meeting, in which their prayers and interpretations intertwined with our interview.

Susan mentioned something that all our other interviewees echoed: Practicing Christianity (or any faith) in Seattle is an intentional choice - you don't have cultural christians with cultural expectations like you do on the East Coast. For some, that means a positive opportunity to create an intentional space and life for something new; for others, that means that practicing Christianity here is to be surrounded by an "anything goes" spiritual climate.

I'm beginning to wonder what would happen if we could pick up and rearrange all the people we've met thus far, and put them in new environments (like the culturally christian South). What would get to them first - the culture of being Christian, or the humidity?

Saturday: Saturday morning, we walked to Pike's Place Market before going to the Summer Solstice Festival with some of Debbie's friends (Michael and Carissa).

The Summer Solstice parade was AWESOME - incredible floats and great music. It was pretty crazy too - naked men in body paint cycling along, belly dancers of all belly persuasions, Pastafarians blessing the crowd with pasta while also threatening us with a giant Spaghetti Monster... check out the pictures (and forthcoming video), as they'll probably speak better than our words can.

Sunday: Today, we're going to worship at Bethany Presbyterian, and then drive on down to Portland to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Edwards.