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Last night I went to an absolutely lovely party, given to celebrate telerib's engagement to her partner Moe.

We were asked to wear "fancy dress, although if you happen to have fancy dress for a Court not of this time or dimension, that'll do nicely." (Moe, for instance, was wearing a dress uniform from the court of Emperor Norton I.) I wore a long gothic-y faux-velvet dress, crimson and black and ludicrously low-cut, that I've had in my closet for years. curiousangel was resplendent in tailcoat, peacock-blue waistcoat, lace jabot, and knee-high boots over crushed velvet tights.

The theme of the party was "Twilight Waltz." In a field behind their backyard, they had strung white lights in the trees and set up a stereo. We were each (both men and women) provided with dance cards with small pencils attached by a narrow strand of ribbon; the ribbon served nicely to attach my dance card to my wrist, except that it kept coming untaped from the card, leaving me with nothing dangling from my wrist but a forlorn little pencil. One couple demonstrated the waltz step until the rest of the group had learned it, and then we were set loose with instructions to find ourselves partners for the first set.

Although the waltz was completely new to most of the people there, everyone threw themselves into the whole scheme with enthusiasm. Initially, I didn't know any of the gentlemen except for curiousangel and Moe, but I still found myself engaged as often as I cared to dance. Everyone was beautifully dressed and charming. Politics were studiously avoided. In between sets, we cane into the house for food and drink and conversation, or clustered around the log fire burning in a brazier in the backyard. The fourth set ended with two songs most of us knew by heart: Billy Joel's Piano Man and the Muppet Movie's Rainbow Connection. We all sang along as we danced, and it was beautiful.

I'd say that the dancing part of the evening ended too soon, except that we were all exhausted. We toasted telerib and Moe's happiness, and shortly after that I got tired and dragged curiousangel away. It was a lovely party.

Day of the Dead/All Souls.

Our church always has a service remembering the dead on the Sunday closest to Halloween and All Souls' Day. This year they added powerful new elements to the service, I think in the hopes of establishing a ritual for future years. I hope so. I was deeply moved.

People were encouraged to come early - starting at 10:30 for an 11:00 service. Scribes standing at the doors to the church asked those coming in if there was anyone they wanted remembered, and recorded their names. We were also encouraged to bring photos or other mementoes - I saw someone bringing forward a sewing bobbin; I wonder what the story is behind that - and place them at the front of the church, before the pulpit.

Details of the order of service had been altered to emphasize the special, ritual quality of the service. "Greeting our neighbors," for example, a boisterous interlude that often takes five minutes or more, was postponed until after church in the parish hall. Announcments were kept to a minimum. We sang only one hymn - the UU version of "For All the Saints" - but the choir had prepared special music, including a solo of Faure's Pie Jesu and an a capella quartet performing Sweet Honey in the Rock's Breaths. Interspersed with the anthems were short readings.

We had been encouraged to bring canned or packaged foods that reminded us of the people we were remembering, and during the service the food was collected "as an offering from the dead to the living," to be donated to the local food pantry.

The sermon was about preparing for death. Not about preparing for or coping with a loved one's death - which is what I was expecting - but about readying yourself for becoming old or sick and dying. The minister pointed out that in many other religions, funerals are a time when mourners are encouraged to contemplate their own prospective death. Unitarian funerals tend to be celebrations of the life of the deceased - which is not a bad thing, but does mean that we don't talk much about how to die. Her main thesis was that, from birth, we learn that the things that make us valuable and important are our accomplishments. And then, as we get old or infirm and begin to die, our accomplishments are stripped away. We have to learn to value ourselves, for ourselves - to believe that we have worth and dignity just from being, not from anything we do or have. We have to learn that dependence and inaction do not negate the value of our lives, if we are to accept ourselves at the end.

Finally, the ministers read the lists of names to be remembered. After each five names, the congregation sang a simple chant: "What is remembered, lives. What is remembered, lives." It was simple and profound, and I found myself moved to tears.

One of the things I love about my church is that it recognizes that you don't have to give up ritual when you give up orthodoxy.