"Do I see an anchor in your eye? An anchor of light and love. Do I hear you confess, Beta Lambda's the best and you'll hold her all others above? Do I see a love for Beta Lamb that will linger as time goes by? For an anchor so true is waiting for you, if there's an anchor in your eye"
I was down in my living room at one o'clock this morning singing that song with sixteen other girls, along with half a dozen other songs...this is after we spent the night eating, talking, crafting, laughing and most importantly getting to know each other.
I'm still involved with my sorority from the University of Redlands. I just try to be supportive, make it out to a meeting or two, and I always am there each semester to wash the dishes at the Rush parties...my very favorite task. :) As of this Fall, it'll have been ten years since I pledged and here I am still a sorority girl.
I think the word "sorority" has such a negative connotation in society. It seems to mean I joined a cult-like group of girls so I could be just like them. It's been deemed desperate, mindless, and many other negative attributes of womanhood.
Beta Lambda is just a group of girls. There is a process of pledging in place that has had every detail scrutinized to achieve the goal of getting to know new members and teach them the traditions of the sorority. It's all about individuality and what each individual adds to the group. It's about teamwork, creativity, and just plain old fun.
It was re-founded by eight girls in 1988 that wanted to establish a group that was about making friends for life not just so you'd have someone to go with to a college party. They succeeded.
There is something about this group that makes these young girls I had at my house last night kindred spirits, we don't have much in common and we certainly are at completely different places in our lives but there's an unspoken bond. Not a cheesy secret hand shake kind of bond, but a silent one that merely emanates from the fact that one day all of us thought that reliability, graciousness, and beauty of character sounded like the kind of things we wanted to aspire to...and a group based on that sounded pretty cool.
So, tonight it was all about the "Beta Love" as we jokingly call it...just celebrating friendship, and, without even trying, celebrating all those astounding aspects of womanhood.