God in NYC

GOD in N.Y.C.

I(Jesse) grew up in the woods of Tulip, Indiana. I hate traffic, noise, phones, and pretty much don't admire man-made things besides literature, music, and baseball near as much as I should. Yet, I must confess that I do love to visit New York City where there is plenty of traffic, noise, phones, and man-made things. Why? The picture above I took is just one reminder. In the foreground are tombstones hundreds of years old. In the background are modern-day skyscrapers. Between the historical cemetery and the new buildings is Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center used to stand. Earlier in the day we spent some time walking around Hoboken, NJ and found a really great coffee shop. We then took the train under the Hudson River to Manhatten. We got off the train and came up an extremely long escalator to see Ground Zero. Attached to the fence surrounding Ground Zero are pictures and paintings, tributes to the ones lost who worked there and the ones lost who rushed into the burning buildings to save the people who were trapped there. So within an hour, in New York City, I was able to get some rockin' coffee, take a train underneath a very wide river, come up out of the ground and be reminded that people are worth dying for; He created us very good then He became one of us to rush in and die for us because we are worth dying for. The firefighters and policeman of 9/11 understood that people in the physical realm are worth dying for, and our Creator understands it in the spiritual realm that we are worth dying for.

That great reminder was just the beginning once we were in the city. One evening we road the subway from Times Square to the upper east side to see a Baroque performance in an old Cathedral. I can't really define Baroque, but on the way there we were squeezed into the sub like sardines over to Grand Central Station then up to Lexington and 66th. This train that went up was to keep going up, like up to Harlem and the Bronx. I was about the only white guy in this packed train and I loved it. There were all kinds of different ethnicities, classes, and languages. I wanted to strike up converstions with everyone in our car to see what their stories were like, but I just stood there holding onto the pole because I knew it is like zero cool points to start talking to everybody on a sub. 99% of the people are plugged into their ipod anymore anyway so that they don't have to talk. We made it to the Baroque concert. Before the concert there was this really good lecturer talking about the theology behind Bach's pieces. I thought that I would really get into the words and music of the concert because of the deep theology behind or within the words and music, but once the music started soaring I followed the words for about two lines then gave up. I listened and thought about why I loved being on a subway with hundreds of people that seem so different than me. I thought about that maybe we are too quick to identify differences when there are far, far more things that unite us and are similar amongst us. I thought about how as diverse as New York City is, it doesn't come close to how diverse the Kingdom of God is worldwide. I guess that is all the theology I needed during that Baroque concert and I didn't even have to define Baroque or follow the words. Our friend from IU, by the way, is about 4'10" and plays a mean Baroque violin. She is as good at playing it as she was one night in the year 2000 at the Crane's cabin eating all of our fried fish from Minnesota. But that is a whole other story.

New York brings much more thoughts and feelings to my mind, but I think it is best summed up in a song by Rich Mullins:

"And the lady in the harbor She still holds her torch out To those huddled masses who are Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral And they stoop in the silence And there their prayers are still whispered And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song In the land of my sojourn

Nobody tells you when you get born here How much you'll come to love it And how you'll never belong here So I call you my country And I'll be lonely for my home And I wish that I could take you there with me"

As for my March Madness basketball picks, I chose Florida to repeat. That is looking really good right now, except for the fact I picked them over Texas in the final. Like the Sports Guy says, you can't underestimate bad coaching. Hence, Texas isn't looking too good.