Temptation

We always think, somehow, that we're not the one being tempted.  Especially when it isn't an obvious temptation, like the temptation to lie or steal or cheat on taxes or commit adultery.  It's easy to find justifications, to stumble through the world stepping on people's toes and somehow remain it's their fault.

It's easy, but it isn't right.

The first thing my mom was told when taking ballroom dancing was that she had to follow the man she was dancing with (often, in fact, mostly my father).  If he stepped on her toes, it was her fault because she wasn't following well enough.  And the same principle probably applies to life, or so we think.  If your toes are being stepped on, it's definitely your fault because hey were simply in the way.

How rude.

"He who would retain his life shall lose it, and he who shall lose his life shall keep it."  Jesus said it, and He, as usual, was all too correct.  To lose one's own life, to be absorbed into the Church, is to lose all rights of protest and critique.  The Church will err, it will hurt you, and it will sin.  People, whether Christian or not, will err, will hurt you, and will sin.  Don't worry, God put them there specifically to transform you.

"So count it pure joy when men revile you..." not, in fact, because you're being reviled and thus persecuted.  No, rather, count it pure joy because that reviling is itself turning you into what Christ wants  you to be.

Well, it's been forever since I blogged.  Why?  Haven't the foggiest, except that life is pretty mundane - do research, answer the phone, do more research, go home, eat, talk to friends or family, sleep.  Boring, right?

Not exactly.  As some may know, and all will know in a second, I've really been working through a lot of spiritual issues lately.  There are multiple reasons, including a sense that I failed God too much for Him to want to forgive me, a sense of unworthiness for the pastoral ministry, and some pretty profound disillusionment with the way my church has handled gender roles in the past.  It's been a pretty nasty struggle.

But like all struggles, there are lessons to be learned.  I learned that, though Christians can be careless in word or deed, they are also the most likely to get down at eye level and say, "I love you too much to let you wander like this."

I learned that God uses those who are unworthy to shame the wise.  God uses the weak to shame the strong, the poor to shame the rich, the foolish to shame the wise.  And, as Christians, we are that weak, that poor, that foolish because in us God is working.  That is both humbling and frightening at the same time.

I eventually got down on my knees and told God that even if He sent me to a place where the church was split, the doctrine was stupid, the rules were legalistic, the women were oppressed, the men were egotistical, and the worship was contemporary, I would obey his call.  It took a lot.  I gritted my teeth and went back on it several times, but in the end gave it all up to Him.

No bells went off.  I gained only a little peace, and no satisfaction.  Still, I was surrendered, which mean, in the end, I wasn't doing it for peace or satisfaction or bells.  I was doing it because I am completely owned by Jesus Christ.

Which brings me to a good point.  The book No Better Freedom by Michael Card will change your life.  You might hate it, you might love it, but you won't escape unscathed.  His central premise is, well, that we are owned by Jesus and in that we have freedom.  But to my little brain, it was commendable because not once did the author imply there was something broken about the modern church.  Instead, he showed what discipleship was about.  Instead of critiquing, he proposed.  Instead of destroying, he rebuilt.  It was liberating just to read.

Not that life is suddenly easier this week.  Old Man comes sneaking up on me a lot, along with Temptation.  I relapse.  I wander back.  I doubt everything again.  I find myself vacillitating between extreme piety - Book of Common Prayer, late night prayer vigils, watching Jesus of Nazareth on my iPad - and extreme rationalism - no, you didn't just admit you believe in speaking in tongues, you silly fool.

So let's see what another few weeks brings.

Leap ye Lame

The work down at PBN is, well, tiring.  You spend all day researching arcane types of knowledge - who built what church at what time?  Who owns what building now, and for how long?  What is the size of the congregation currently?  Droll stuff, certainly.

But it is within the droll stuff that humanity lives, breathes and has our being.  The sum total of florists in a city is wonderfully obscure, but it says much about what types of people prefer what types of flowers.  This in turn tells you about what people think about aesthetics.  And aesthetics is built on cultural assumptions and mega-trends that shape an entire epoch or civilization.

Which means that every day, when you buy gas at that gas station, or shop at that store, or eat at that restaurant, you are affecting a mega-trend.  Also, in a small way, you are throwing your tiny weight and changing civilization just a slight bit.  This is called bearing the Image of God.  It is being a fully participatory adult.

Art Festival

I strolled down to the Allentown Art Festival today.  Art Festivals aren't always my thing - lots of people, plenty of kitsch, pickpockets, annoying salesmen.  In fact, I usually go to watch the people.  People-watching is a pastime of mine, has been with me as long as I can remember.  You see the darndest things, sometimes, too.  Today, I saw:

A hideously burnt woman with barely healed skin in a very revealing dress.  Maybe the dress was necessary to prevent infection in her wounds, maybe she had been burnt for so long she was no longer self-conscious about it.  I really don't know.  But I would love to know how she got in that fire, why she survived, how she dealt with surviving. In short, I want to know her story.

There was also the poor college student who couldn't play guitar very well but was out with a hat and a guitar anyway.  I wonder - did he pick up guitar in order to play outside, or did he play outside in order to practice guitar?  Or is he an amazing virtuoso whose voice was damaged after a long weekend of rehearsal, and he was resting?  He wasn't bad, he was just simply very quiet and simplistic in his chord structures.

I also noticed that most fast food owners are rather large people.  I wonder, do they eat their own food?  There is something remarkably dangerous about eating your own poison (or delicacies, for that matter).  It gives one a god-delusion, I think, for I also noticed that the vast majority of them were loud, foul-mouthed and impatient.

Please don't take this post to be me criticizing the world for my own amusement.  There is some of that, true.  There is also something else going on.

All of those people were beautiful.

Sure, they were burnt, or not particularly musical, or fat and foul.  But they were images of a far-distant Creator.  They were our kindred.  Taken in the aggregate, humanity is overwhelming.  Taken in the individual, each person is a work of art from God Himself.  There was artwork all around me, but little of it was for sale.

Or are we?

Some of us may think we're kitsch, valuable only because of the whims of others.  Others of us don't see how we are like art at all, because we think we are so worthless.  But the truth is that worth is not something measured by the crowds, or the experts, or even the other people in our lives.  It is not something learned about in books, seen on TV, or even the result of comparative analysis with the rest of humanity.

The Mona Lisa would be great art even if it was hiding in a dim corner of a dilapidated bar in Patagonia.  Picasso was art before anyone discovered him.  And each person is precious because our lives were painted by the Master Painter.  Don't fit in?  You're probably the beginning of a new movement by the Master Painter.  Feel like no one takes you seriously?  Yeah, that was Van Gogh's problem.

Wow, I've wound up with God again.  This is why it is unwise to leave me alone for two hours at an arts festival.

Glory and Ashes

There are some times in life when we must throw back our heads and howl to the winds, "why??????"  The diagnosis comes in, the job market dries up, the friend calls with awful news, and suddenly you are knocked on your knees.  It's like a hurricane came barrelling through life, raining on everything, whipping up the hot air, and you're headed for the hills while throwing plywood over everything.  We demand answers of the universe, and the universe refuses to answer.

Then people show up with their comfort.  "Oh," they say, "isn't it great that all things work together for the glory of God?"  Yes, of course it is, but why did He have to glorify Himself with my friend, my sibling, my child?  "What is God trying to teach us?"  How to pop hot air balloons.  "Just cheer up, it'll get better."  Well, yeah, but not right now!

But brace yourself up, like a man, if you still can!  Can you raise leviathan?  Can you put hooks in his jaw?  Of course not, he is too large.  God is the Eye of the Storm, and in Him alone is comfort.  He is the Truth beyond Learning, the Glorious One who is coming to reign.  Behold He comes, and in His train come Justice and Mercy, Punishment and Compassion, the things this world needs.  Every rapist will be given their due, every murderer will feel the sting of death, every oppressor will feel the rectifying power of God.  That alone is our hope of salvation.

Summer

I lied.  That was not the last post.  This is.  I am coming back for the summer, to work with more historic churches.

BUT...first...I visited Houghton.  And saw friends.  You know what?  Friends are awesome.

AND...before that...I was home.  For three weeks.  Which was the awesomest awesomeness since they invented sour cream and onion potato chips.

Time to wax eloquent.  I've been pondering why communal worship is so meaningful to so many people (including me).  I know some of it has to do with feeling like part of a group, of belonging.  Part of it is worshipping.  Part of it is the beauty of communal worship (even that deaf fellow with the tin ear in pew three).

However, it seems there is something deeper and more meaningful.  In fact, I have come to believe there is something, related perhaps to Jesus' words about "let them be one as we are One," that connects us in communal worship.  It is something deep, so deep that we lose ourselves (for awhile) in the immanence of other human beings. 

And this feeling is all the deeper and stronger when it is felt with God.  There is nothing like the Oneness with God, which we find only in worship and which no one who has tasted of it has ever forgotten.  Even those who wander away from the faith remember and long to sense God near.  They convince themselves that they felt nothing but chemical washes, but they were experiencing Another.

This summer, I seek God.  Historic churches, friends, family, books, Latin (I'm teaching myself), a novel that must be written all seem so important.  But my priority is to sense again and again and again the nearness of God and His worshippers.

Final Post

This is the final post of my internship log.  It sounds weird to write that, because I don't want it to be the final post.  In a sense, it isn't, because I am coming back for the summer to work on the same project.  That is why I wasn't too heartbroken to not say good bye to my boss.  After all, the summer is coming.

But this is an ending.  It is the end of my routine.  Currently, I am at home, in a pattern of life laid down five years ago it seems.  My schoolyear schedule is off.  I no longer need to rise for an early morning class or work session.  However, I also am running around a lot more with my siblings.  The vacation is nice.  But it is vacation, and now I know it is such a thing.  Even after only a weekend, I want to get back to work.

Somehow, I've discovered the tools I want to work with at this point in my life.  Research and analysis of historic churches sounds dull.  Perhaps it is.  But it tells me things, things I haven't deciphered yet.  Why are people leaving the city and leaving the church?  Why do those who stay have such a helplessness?  Why do we view ourselves as victims?  These are questions I still have to answer.

And then there is the sheer pleasure of doing something useful and original.  The pleasure of writing up a methodology and knowing that in all the world, you are one of the few who has ever thought about how to do a comprehensive survey of historic churches.  This sounds like an arrogant statement, and perhaps it is.  For sure, survey work is hardly an in-demand skill, but it is still cool.  There is the pleasure of producing something new and original, of adding to the economy and producing something with skill.  Doing a job and doing it well is so satisfying.  At times, it feels glorious.

And meeting so many fellow Christians in a foreign and new city has been exciting.  I've met evangelicals, Catholics, charismatics, non-denominationals, godly hippies, and a whole range of others.  I must admit, sometimes I quite deeply disagreed about methods and madness.  But, the Body of Christ is so large and so beautiful and so diverse that it staggers my mind.  Their churches range from massive relics from Europe, to small and quaint chapels, to polished modernist fabrications.  But they are all still churches, where people come with their burdens and meet their God.

My professor jokes that we need to provide him with the answers to all the urban dilemmas he has introduced us to in the past few weeks.  By the end of the semester.  I cannot hope to accomplish such an audacious task, but here is my summary.

Urban poverty is first and foremost a poverty of the spirit.  It is a failure of the imagination, an inability to imagine a better and different life.  It is possible to be poor and improving.  It is possible to have nothing in material goods, but be determined to find a better life.  Prime examples of this would be the refugees in Buffalo, who arrive destitute and nation-less. After a few years, however, they transform their lives, start stores, get jobs in a jobless city, and become prosperous.  They will to thrive.

The endemic poverty of the inner city, however, is a poverty that does not will to thrive.  It turns adults into dependents.  It convinces the mind and the heart that there is nothing else in the world.  "This is not a good life," says the endemically poor brain, "but no life is possible for messed up and stupid me.  I cannot break this cycle.  It is too big for me."

And so it is.  But there are bigger forces than the individual.  The end of poverty begins with the enrichment of the soul.  The church is the only institution capable of transforming dependents into free spiritual adults.  It must move back to the neighborhoods.  This return must be not just a white church, but a black and Asian and Hispanic church.  It must show the way for racial integration, socio-economic integration and a change in life.  Many endemically poor people have expressed to me how betrayed they feel by leadership, their own leadership, including in the city government, the federal government and the church.  The church must begin to restore this confidence in the poor.

Once spiritual poverty has been addressed, the world can begin to rethink its economic strategies.  The urban system is currently built to contain the poor in the city, where living is cheapest, or in the far distant countryside.  The rings of suburbs and townships around the cities are where the wealth generation is happening, except for major wealth producing areas such as Manhattan.  But this disconnects the poor from opportunity, and this leads to joblessness.  A more confident and assured underclass is useless unless that renewed confidence can be combined with opportunity.  But as to how this can be addressed, I have very little knowledge.

So that is my summary, Granpa.  Ask me in five years if any of it still makes sense.

Bars

We went to the Anchor Bar tonight. It was not my first pub experience, but...I was reminded why I prefer quiet restaurants. The jazz, though, was phenomenal. I was thinking of the jazz musicians who have touched my life tonight, wishing they could hear the music.

On another note, my summer internship came through today. This is very exciting, not only because I can spend the summer in Buffalo, but also because I can finish my project. I reduced the number of churches to about twenty-four. But I still have background research and editing to do, as well as formulate further steps in the methodology.

Frazzle

This is the second to last week of the internship. I have gone through so much, learned so much, and done so much. And yet, even now I feel like I have barely made a dent in the historic churches preservation project as a whole. I have thirty-eight churches to go, which is not a lot. But there is so much research to get done, because each individual building has its own story.

And I can still here the voices of all those saints before me singing in all the churches. There is a historicity to wandering amongst these churches. The weight of centuries of belief sort of weights on your head, when you realize that the church before you is based on a church designed five hundred or a thousand years before, for Christians whom I meet in heaven. Age and reverence dominate the mood.

Nice Weather

It was nice outside today, but I had so much office work I couldn't justify being outside. It was sad to sit in the Market Arcade and watch the sunlight dance on the buildings on the other side of Main Street, knowing I could not join the dance. And, what is more, I lost some pictures and that utterly dampened my morning.

Or did it? The office has survived the transition of executive directors. People are happier than before, joking and laughing. It is a fun, buzzing place to work. The atmosphere has changed dramatically. Management reminder for later in life: any situation can be overcome with a cheery attitude.

But those missing pictures remain elusive...

Apology for Vocation

Lately I have been struggling with why I am doing what I am doing. My work at the preservation board seems, frankly, to be a bit anachronistic at times. It is a very strong secular moral system, which says that the older the building or the more unique the architecture, the more virtuous the salvation of that building. Those who damage the oldest and most unique are the reprobate. However, as a Christian, I am often disturbed by this value system. After all, they're just building which will crumble into dust one day. I feel that I should be doing work that, instead of conserving the dead past, is making a brighter future. I should be fighting poverty, or increasing literacy, or making innovations and wealth. In short, I should not be wasting my time on stones and mortar and buildings that were built out of hubric pride.

This attitude at times extends into a much deeper part of my life. Why am I interested in history and theology, the story of dead humans and an invisible God? Why not do something practical, like chemistry? Or useful, like Psychiatry? Why am I wasting my time?

Because despite our fascination with the new and the dazzling and the high-tech, the ancestry of tradition still matters. True, I could be an architect of the brave new world. I could make a killing in business, with enough money to buy a country (actually, this is probably a delusion of some sort, but the point remains). I could investigate new theories, advance knowledge, build whole new universes of abstract thought. Or I could work to solve world hunger, sex trafficking, pollution and the thousand other social ills. I could make a name for myself, like the people of Genesis 10.

But who holds the hand of the mother whose son has just been shot? Who hugs the grieving, visits the sick and prays with the hurting? Who looks a poor person in the eyes, and says "I see past your rags and your smell and your casual attitude towards life. I see the pain inside you."

It isn't the investment banker. That is bad business.

It isn't the tech innovator. You can't reprogram the social structure with a few strokes of the keyboard.

It isn't the cop. The law only allows the police so much working space.

It isn't even the humanitarian. A humanitarian worker must set up limits and boundaries. They must set target goals, including who they will help and when and for what reasons. This is not selfish, it is part of prioritizing the need. It is part of the job.

Only the neighborhood pastor can look someone in the eyes and say, "God is working in your life even though your jobs are gone, your child is dead, and you have no hope.". By pastor, I am not necessarily referring to the ordained person. Rather, I am talking about the shepherd of humanity, the man or woman who is entrusted by God to round off the sharp corners of existence and continue to give people hope.

Hope. It is the type of capital missing from our city neighborhoods. It is what we seek to bring when we fight poverty and rescue girls from trafficking. It is the thing we desire when we fight against oppression and tyranny and injustice. And hope comes from God.

In a way, this is what all Christians should be doing. Evangelism and service are necessary duties, but the ultimate goal of Christianity is not to make converts or end squalor. It is to give everyone a hope that transcends death and suffering and mortality. This is the function of the church in the secular age. We must bring hope to all.

Get off soapbox, get back onto street.

Batman

The Superhero is almost always placed in a city. Why? Perhaps because the creators see cities as particularly needing superheroes. Or perhaps because there is a general sense that the battle for the future of our civilization will be fought out in cities. And the most urban of all the superheroes is Batman, the silent defender and guardian of congested street ways. He is master of the street fighting tactics so respected by criminals, to the point where he terrifies the mob. To add even more wallop, he can also handle the just as dirty trust fund politics as Bruce Wayne. If there is evil, he can fight it and win.

Notice, however,that his methodology is so deeply different from that of Christ or so many others of His followers. This direct confrontation is similar to Christ's blunt words for the Pharisees, but it is tough to imagine Christ beating up criminals with his bare hands. Christ somehow knew how to bring thieves and prostitutes and soldiers to Himself, without having to beat them up or answer them back or win a confrontation or vindicate himself. Those upsy, self-righteous Pharisees got the rough end of his tongue, to be sure, and once he made a knot of cords for extortionists making money off piety. But they should have known better.

If there is a hope for the modern American city, and while there is life there is hope, the overall strategy must be less Batmanesque and more Christ-like. To a Christians, this would seem obvious at first glance. But how, in particular, must this change in mindset be worked out?

It means not expecting people to cease to be single mothers, or welfare recipients, or homeless before they are accepted by the church. It means not assuming that Christian devotion is synonymous with middle class, suburban lifestyle choices. In the past two and a half months,I have met quite a few suburbanites trying to live out their faith in a new urban context. All have a lot to learn (perhaps I feel this kinship because I too have much to learn). Some, however, have yet to realize that the inner city of Buffalo is as different from the suburbs as parts of Africa. In fact, I have been to European countries more like the American suburbs than American cities are like American suburbs.

It is time for cross-cultural missions to happen in America's backyard. But, just as the foreign mission field is changing from crusade-heavy, evangelistic outreaches to development and educational work, so it is time for American Christians to decide to develop American communities and American schools for Christ's kingdom. It is what He would want done.

Warm Weather

Buffalo comes alive the moment the snow begins to thaw. True, snowstorms also bring people out to the streets to shovel snow, but the is nothing like the release of cabin fever when the sun finally begins to shine after the eternity of winter. People come outside and stretch in the sun. They gather in courtyards to eat, and walk the streets and smile and wave at passersby. Spring has come.

The church survey goes well. In fact, the preliminary survey is ending. It is weird to read Mark Goldman's book on the city or indeed any history of Buffalo and recognize all of the churches being mentioned. It gives a strange gleam of familiarity to a place that has been home away from home for a mere seven weeks. And yet these structures have become friends, signs of the mystic sweet communion my fellow Christians partake in every Sunday. For this, I am glad of the survey.

New Week

It was a long weekend at Houghton. Fun, relaxing, but long, like a cool drink of water.

I got back to my internship this morning to find that politics was finally working. Before, I had seen transitions begin to go very wrong. People were snipping at each other, disliking the change in routine. But now everyone was crowded around a table, talking and laughing and joking. How does this come about?

First of all, gentle guidance goes a long way. It is one thing to storm in and say how much everything is going to change. In a way, this is necessary. The parameters must be clearly set. However, once the parameters are stated, the new executive director, Tom Yots, went to careful lengths to learn how everyone's job worked. He wanted to know how to set up tours, and write grants, and organize the office. He is a master at delegating and respectfully enhancing the skills of his workers.

Second of all, honesty is the only policy. If you don't like something, say so but say it gently. Don't pretend everything is ok, because people can sense when it is not. And they are afraid when they don't know, because the unknown thing is frightening.

Finally, unify everyone around a legitimate but surmountable challenge at the very beginning. A good example is the current Trico plant reuse plan, which involves a polite fight between the preservation board and the medical campus. This unifies the organization and creates a new sense of teamwork and identity within the new power structure.

This is how to lead a transition.

Flashpoint

There are some moments in time that are more important than others. The moment when you realize that a puzzle that has been particularly challenging has finally been solved is one such moment. I imagine getting married is a similar moment, but I have never had the experience. Then there are the other times, when one knows by instinct that something should not happen. Do not turn down that street, do not say what you are thinking, do not forget your keys in the car.

PBN is in the middle of a major transformation. Executive directors are being replaced, new staff are coming on board, new projects are being started. Similarly, Houghton is in a time of transformation, with attendant administrative mix-up. The world seems topsy-turvy. So how do we handle times of change?

The first step is to stay calm. The world will not end if a certain project is abandoned, or a different person is heading up a department. Policy can be rewritten and the sun will not magically turn off. A relationship can end, or start, or grow apart, or grow together and the world keeps on ticking away.

But that being said, do not stop believing and caring. Transition is hard, but cynicism is worse. The world will not end, but that should not mean you should stop caring about it. Just because you are not god does not mean you are not important to the world. Hang in there, fellow traveler.

Routine

There is something comforting about routine. It is familiar, and everything is expected. We are such creatures of comfort, this human race. By this, I prove I am human. I get up each day at the same time, eat breakfast at the same time, go to work (either data entry or site visits) at the same time, eat lunch at the same time and go to class. World without end.

And then something happens that stirs us out of routine. I find a beautiful church that isn't on my lists, and break routine and procedure to go visit it. Or I meet a friendly person and talk for fifteen minutes. Or, for some strange reason, I get almost nothing done but have a great time talking about religion and architecture with my boss. Variation in the midst of routine is what makes life interesting. If my life had no routine, I would panic. But if it had only routine, I would stultify. It is balance that keeps me alive.

And so, on Monday I went to Niagara Falls to visit churches. The depopulation has reached advanced stages in that former boomtown. Whole streets are deserted. Almost every house for blocks on end is boarded up. In some neighborhoods, all I could hear were the birds singing in their nests in the roofs. What had once been a thriving city was now a ghost town with a casino and a national park.

That was a sobering visit. Unlike Buffalo, where people are increasingly not going to church, in Niagara Falls there are not enough people for the churches that exist. Even if everyone went, the churches would still be half empty. It is a desolate place. Was this what the fall of Rome was like?

This is a different type of depressed area. Niagara Falls is not a slum town. It is hard to believe, but squalor is a sign of a healthy city. The city is alive and thriving enough for plenty of people to visit, and decide to stay, despite the squalor. It conjures up the thought that home is worse, so stay in the squalor.

But Niagara Falls is empty. It is wilderness despite the presence of roads and buildings. There is no such thing as a slum in Niagara Falle because no one is willing to pay them price to live there. And why should they? Supposedly, they had a job once in Niagara Falls, but I think the position has been filled.

There is of course some light in the darkness. It is not all bad. Tourism keeps a few restaurants open and a few kitschy businesses running. From the ashes, a village or a town will arise. But the boom days are gone. Forever.

Inspiration

I have never claimed to be inspired, and have never really considered what it would be like to be divinely inspired. However, there are moments when i wonder what it would be like to be God and wander around seeing the city through His eyes. What would He see?

How would He view the obviously homeless guy who asks for money when you only have enough for parking? How would He view the struggling congregation with the gorgeous building and no money? In other words, what would Jesus build? Would Jesus feel disoriented with the vast historical and cultural distance, or, being God, would He somehow find it strangely human? Would He love this world we inhabit, and enjoy 2012?

I often wonder this as I look at the bygone memorials to the faith of long departed parishes. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the faithful built reminders of home. The churches in the German, Polish and Italian neighborhood, especially, were copied from the parishes back in the Old World. But over the course of the twentieth century, the people moved out. Now the churches stand deserted, among the silent neighborhoods, still pointing towards heaven but hollowed out from the inside.

Where are the people? Why are they gone? Or are we walking the apocalypse, the death of religion in the West? How can you have universal, or even majority, but individually chosen religion in a post Christian West?

Long Way Back

It has been a crazy week. The first two days were sort of blah, almost boring, I just went about the same old routine, to the point where I was becoming complacent. My paper was finished, my internship was progressing, and life seemed strangely normal. I was even acclimating to a new city and getting used to living in a place my father avoided like the plague becaue of the snow drifts.

On Sunday, I had even gone to a liberal Presbyterian church that was openly affirming of gay couples. That called upon the presbytery to ordain gay couples. And I did not run out of the room screaming and making the sign of the cross. I didn't even sneer. I was simply perturbed walking out, not sure if I bought the biblicist arguments put forward by the church, but amazed by biblicism reaching a very different conclusion from that which I adhered to. I was that cosmopolitan and sophisticated and diverse.

Then Wednesday came, like a plague from the Orient. It started normally. I drove in to my internship like a normal adult. I came into the office, greeted everyone, made rational decisions. I was a capable, functioning adult.

Then I got in the car to go to Houghton. Maybe some stars crossed. Maybe some was doing voodoo on me. Certainly, I was about to learn about humility and embarrassment and grace. I got on campus without incident. Then I parked, met someone I had never met before...actually, I stared at her because I had a headache from driving until a mutual friend introduced us.

Things only got worse. I went to my office on campus, only to find my friend whom I was supposed to meet had gone charging up the hill by another path. Ten minutes of tense phone communication and cartoon-like crossing of the paths ensued. Once that was cleared up, i had to get food.

Instead, I walked into a pingpong table. In front of Dr Meilaender, a friend and mentor who was really enjoying watching me walk into the table. He was doubled over in laughter, which is very rare for him.

Things only got worse until, at nine forty, I ended up with three people mad at me for various reasons. I also was supposed to pick up a package, but it was missing. Which I realized in Arcade, halfway back to Buffalo.

So the next day I went through the routine again, including an internship day, a visit with a pastor and some home rebuilding. Then I got in my car and drove back to Houghton, and frantically tore the campus apart trying to locate it. Meanwhile, it started to snow. And I ended up not finding the package until the next day, in the campus post office of all places. I was up to three in the morning talking about anabaptism, I don't know why.

I was also apparently hysterical and talking about all sorts of nonsense. I told a friend some things, which I don't remember, but they shocked her. Embarrassed, humiliated, weirded out are all equally valid ways of describing that experience.

But God was good. I found everything I had to, in the end, and got back in time for class and everything was fine. Dandy. But I learned that my rushing about and being frantic does nothing, I learned that I am an ant, carrying more than I should, but unlike ants it is not always for the common good. I learned that God can be relied on when I cannot. It was a verg important, life-forming week,

Progress Meeting

Yesterday, I had a progress meeting. It was terrifying, to be honest. I had invested a lot of time in the project, and now it was subject to review. In the end, I was congratulated and advised and told to widen my scope. It was too easy, to be honest, since they let me have discretion and then didn't take it away after my review. I think this is usually called growing up.

But other things develop. There were inevitable tensions in the group, between the Niagara Falls people and the Buffalo people, the architects and the preservationists and the historians, so many people with so many view points. I felt like look up a good computer program and forcing it to analyze all of this complexity.

But that is what we humans are best at. Complexity and making sense out of chaos. Perhaps this is what is meant by "the image of God"? That somehow, the production of order out of chaos mimics the operation of God in creation. Or, perhaps, the redemption of order from disorder mimics His salvific role. Is it possible to create a theology of complexity?

Hopelessness

Hopelessness is not something I understand. I am rarely hopeless, in fact, I tends towards the stubborn side of hopeful. Which is why endemic poverty makes so little sense to me. How can you give up fighting for survival and advancement so much that you cannot support yourself?

But, consider the following situation. You have a fought childhood. You have no father figure at home, so when you are about twelve you start looking for someone to look up to. You find that someone in a twenty year old drug peddler, who personifies cool with his iPod and his car and his bravado. At age fifteen, you get caught peddling drugs. While in JV, you make the extremely mature decision to try to work yourself out of this lifestyle.

But where are you going to get a good job, with a rap sheet? Who is going to hire a convict? You don't have a high school diploma. The jobs available in the inner city are mostly downtown or from the same lifestyle you are trying to live. You have to scrape by.

I know about this story because of people I have met, not only this semester but so many others. People who realize life is hard, and envy my spoiled upbringing. People who would kill just to have my high school diploma, let alone my college degree.

Very well, so what are we going to do? The first is stop complaining about how long it takes to find a parking space or other such irrelevant nuisances. The second is stop feeling bad for people, and go out, and help people. Help them refurbish their dwelling space. Form relationships, and then give references for jobs. Start a business and hire poor people. Take risks. You might get hurt, true, but you might also change a life.

Automobiles

The truth is, automobiles are a metaphor for 21st Century America. They are big, fast moving, dominant and annoying. Oh, and the gas required to run them is expensive, at least when compared to historical averages. We worry that the fumes from cars will kill us, either through global warming or forgetting to turn off the engine at the gas station.

Very well, but what about in cities? Rush hour is the eighth circle of hell, it is true. And finding parking is almost impossible. I searched for a good fifteen minutes today, only to park five blocks over, pay two dollars and leave my car next to a demolition site. And that is in a smaller city like Buffalo. Try to park in Philly sometime...

It often seems we should just ban automobiles, or force people to carpool, or enlarge the public transit system. But top down bans rarely, if ever, succeed at their intended object and often have unintended consequences. What, then, is to be done with the automobile?

The first thing that must be recognized is that the automobile is not a perfected product. It is a work in progress, and bright minds can still try to improve it. We can build better fuel injection systems to increase gas mileage. We can tinker with the chemical formulas for gasoline, or find a cheap substitute altogether. We can invent a whole new power system altogether.

The point is that this will not happen in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere, in some city, whether on this continent or not I do not know, someone will come up with a solution to carbon emission. Someone else will come up with a solution for traffic congestion. Intelligence and ingenuity will prevail. So stop being so downhearted by the problems of the city. Figure out a solution.

Where The Heart Is

I hate awkward conversations. Not the faux sort of conversations, like when random guys and random girls have to discuss the weather because said something a bit presumptuous. I am talking about the hard conversations in which you have to disappoint people, or admit you were wrong, or admit you are embarrassed.

Of course, interactions in a high density area like a city are more common. So are awkward interactions, simply as a function of a statistical formula. You realize the fellow standing next to you doesn't speak English, and things become awkward. Someone asks you out to dinner, and you have already made plans. Someone cuts you off, and then steps out of the car and reveals herself to be a hassled mother with four children.

But this is surely where grade and forgiveness should be most often exercised. Surely it is in the Christian's line of duty to relieve that awkwardness, to take the socially painful route and be kind and be generous.

This extends to churches. A vibrant, healthy congregation is one that accepts the awkwardness and pain of being forced to live near and worship with very odd people. White people, black people, rich people, poor people, educated people and illiterate people must all somehow populate the church.

Some churches, of coure, try to limit this interaction. A part of the reason behind the White Flight was a desire to be away from the awkwardness. However, this created an ossified church culture. The white, wealthy suburban churches stayed out in the white, wealthy suburbs. The inner city, poor churches, of all races, stayed isolated in their original neighborhoods. Only recently have reformers stepped in to fill this gap. Some, such as the Wesleyan Church, are acting entirely out of character. What had been a rural and small town denomination known primarily for entire sanctification and teetotaling is now reinvesting in the inner city. This is a sign of the changes happening within the church. We are bridging the divide, at last, but there is still so much to be done,

Save My Schul

No I did not spell school incorrectly. It is a word for synagogue, Yiddish I think, I heard the above title tonight at a meeting of well connected preservation people and Jewish leaders. Our mission: to save the oldest synagogue in Buffalo from demolition. It is a gorgeous building, built in 1905 and with a very distinctive onion shaped dome. The building has been abused, unfortunately, and by my own coreligionists. A rather sobering desecration, with looting unchecked and eventually the City of Buffalo declaring it unrepairable.

We accomplished a lot and nothing at the same time. We formed a committee, developed a methodology and prepared to save the Schul. But we were divided on what to save. Just the Schul? Or all the endangered religious buildings? Or the world? Even grown up, respected people disagree and squabble, which is sad. Even when we agree on ninety-nine percent of the material, we still disagree.

Why do buildings matter? This was a question we had to wrestle with tonight. What is in the building? We struggled for words. It is an anchor of the neighborhood. It is a cultural memory. At heart, we were all trying to articulate one belief. The building is sacred. God was worshipped here. We shouldn't tear it down, because God was worshipped here. But what do you do afterwards? Reuse it? For secular purposes, like an artist's studio? Or keep it in the religious family, so to say?

And this seems the purpose of civilization,or at least of Christian civilization. To renew, to keep alive, to make alive again, to resurrect things. Cities can be populated again.a. Rivers can be cleaned, skies cleansed, and the wild places tamed. This is the world renewed, and it will happen one day.

Back on My Feet

Finally, sickness is over. It is like a shower after a particularly nasty outdoors job, to know I'm working inside like I'm supposed to. The human body is an incredibly adaptive, resilient little bugger. We suffer a slight setback, a flash of sickness, a little trace of the flu. Then we come back, stronger than before. And to the Christian, if we don't come back, then we have gone to something better.

And so it is with the cities of mankind. The Roman legions leave and the cities depopulate, but in time the Middle Ages arises from the cluster of parish houses and the cathedral. In time, we enter the Industrial City, all smoggy and horrid. We rebound from that by cleaning up the smog, by enforcing labor legislation, by creating police forces. The millions of immigrants build themselves gorgeous churches, in order to remind themselves of the glory of home. The natives built still grander churches to show the power and prestige of their city.

Then industry moves out and the city slows. Is this the end of Cities? Has civilization failed? Are doomed to a life of suburbs and privacy? Will China eat our babies in the middle of the night? No, humanity has a habit of rebounding. Apocalypse will happen, but necessarily now. And it is to this moment of transition, of cultural vulnerability, of dynamism, that the church must speak to if it is not to be marginalized.

But how does the church do this? The truth is, I don't really know. I can tell you what churches are successful, but can't really figure out how to measure success. Membership counts? Political power? Transformed lives? How do you measure the amount a life has been transformed? Especially if you don't want to fall into legalism, or vapid amorality?

Some things seem obvious. The church must find a citywide way to take care of the poor, crazy and homeless. It must find a way to provide better housing and food than the shoddy welfare alternatives. But this is not everything. The Church has always helped the poor. It is part of our Christian lifestyle,

But in order to change things, we have to affect the movers and shakers of culture. In order to change the city, you must get the attention of those who already change the city. We must reach into the downtown, into the symphony halls and rotary clubs and university lecture rooms. And we must do it with humility and respect. The intelligentsia or elite is a culture increasingly distant from the mainstream Evangelial church. But how are we to break in there? Again, I am uncertain,

Sickness

I have a hard time thinking up titles, unfortunately. I chose today's title because half the people in the program are sick, including Dr Airhart. I am not sicki, which is good,

My internship is mostly a long, tedious process of driving around neighborhoods and photographing churches. Boring, right? No. You see, churches are monuments to the thoughts of humanity. They are a type of cultural artiact.

When I drive through neighborhoods, I ask myself why some people build their churches on main thoroughfares (Lafayette, Richmond, Elmwood, Main) and other people on little, out of the way side streets (Baynes, Bird, Calumet). Why do some churches on the thoroughfares stay healthy, and others wither despite the high visibility? Most of the side street churches are separatist or radical, including a full complement of Quakers, Brethren, Baptist, Swedenborgian and so forth. Some, such as the Friend's Meeting House on Allen, are part of a historical radical culture and are situated in the heart of the artisan/gay/hipster neighborhoods of today. Others are in run down neighborhoods that are now chock full of Pentecostals and Catholics. Why does this happen?

Speaking of Pentecostals, I have decided my best friends are Hispanic Pentecostals. They maintain, at considerable expense, any old church they happen to buy. The best thing that can happen to a church in Buffalo is to be bought out by an up and coming Hispanic congregation. They take care of their buildings. Non-Hispanics, no matter what race, tend to trash their churches far more often. It really is a marvelous thing to behold.

So live on, Hispanic Pentecostals.

Insanity

Insanity is a way of life to me. Why else do I have the irresistible urge when I see a cute little Episcopal chuch to say, "you are gorgeous, darling?". Perhaps this has something to do with my inclination towards otherworldly disciplines like theology, philosophy and history. Or perhaps it is my long repressed aesthetic coming out in strange, bizarre ways.

But, really, if you got to work with beautiful old churches every day, you would start treating them like lovers. They just sit there, paying mute but resounding testament to a God you both believe in. It is sort of like we have a shared secret, which the rest of the world may or may not know. We really do not care who knows about our secret. The secret is that in the middle of the busy, mad scramble for life and liberty that we call "civilization," there is a deeper, more elemental power at work. The church could pass away, along with the nation and the city and even humanity, but somehow God would survive the destruction of everything. I know this, remotely, and the churches know this far more deeply.

See, I am insane. Funny, it appears normal. Perhaps this internship is reminding me of things I used to know, as well as teaching me many things I had never even dreamed existed. Churches occupy a sacred space, a space for pause and reflection and transcendence in the midst of the immanent city and humanity. Even places of worship from another religion, like synagogues, give me this feeling of awe and grandeur and glory. City folk need this. Country folk have springtime lambs and budding trees and the dance of booklets released from winter. City folk notice the seasons less, so they must pause to remember their maker at some other time.

I think this is why my superiors at the preservation agency, who are mostly Unitarians, and myself, an Evangelical, are so determined to protect Catholic and Jewish places of worship. We have little desire to worship in such place, belonging to other types of religion. But we recognize that we must remember the Deity, and to remove any reminder of God seems like we are obscuring Him. It shorter sour horizon and constricts our view. Even when we disagree, deeply, with those practice this religion.

In Buffalo, there are many Halal markets. I am not Muslim, and do not practice Halalp diet restrictions. But there is something uplifting, even, about seeing some courageous soul announcing in ethnically mixed Buffalo that they are maintaining an ancient, much feared religious way of life. The effect is similar to, if diminished from, that I feel from churches. They are glimmers on the way to glory.

Snow

So I was under the impression that Buffalo got a lot of snow in the winter. This winter, it has had a lot of...sunshine. Rather like an iceberg in Florida, or finding penguins in Hawaii. Today was actually my first day driving to my internship in the middle of a snow storm. My only other chance, so far, was squelched when I got the day off. What is more, I had a miserable time parking and spent twenty minutes going in circles.

Which is all to say, I love the city. Not necessarily Buffalo, because Buffalo firmly believes it is a city when it is turning into a large town. Or was turning into one, before people starting moving back. There is something glorious, however, about a city in foul weather. No one honks you when you take extra long at the stoplight. Or when you start breaking half a block from the stoplight. People, complete strangers, start joking with you about the lousy weather and how much they hate Mother Nature.

I fear I am more of an extrovert than I have ever wanted to admit. A dreamy, abstract, theoretical extrovert, otherwise called an introvert on people drugs. I really like being surrounded by people, though to be honest the population density is about like what it is at home.

Oh, right, my internship. Well, the long and short of it is that today was project preparation and site visits. I am working out a method, which is always fun. And I get to go exploring every single day. See new stuff. See old stuff. Well, old for America. I noticed today that churches come in clusters, not denomination. For instance, the nine hundreds block of Delaware has two Presbyterian churches (a real sad case of church split a hundred years ago), a Hellenic Orthodox church, the former chapel of the Catholic bishops, now Blessed Sacrament Parish, a Baptist church, and two I didn't get to. Within a block, that is incredible diversity. The question is, why did everyone bury the hatchet and live next door to each other? Or did they?

Another Week

Another week come and gone. My internship is taking off. I've visited quite a few churches by now. Some have proved beautiful, such as First Unitarian Curch on Elmwood. Some were made ugly by neglect and misuse, such as Faith Temple, which is a quaint wooden church on Rhode Island Street that is in woeful need of a coat of paint. Some I can never imagine having been beautiful, like the Swedish Evangelical Church/Inglesias de Dios El Shaddai, which despite being well maintained is a drab, industrial, nineteenth century construction. I would be interested to research how homeland notions of aesthetics affect immigrant churches. Are you turning your back on a tradition, or seeking to keep the familiar in the new land?

I returned to that house I was wrecking the other day. Today, I got to rip nails from wood and strip wallpaper. I also did a lot of cleanup. Who knew wallpaper was so messy? I also ate quite a few donuts and muffins, and drank unholy amounts of coffee.

I saw a phenomenal play in Houghton tonight. It was Godspell, basically Hippies Meet Jesus. However, the deep, solemn chant "long live God," done very dirge-like and almost monastically easily made up for the neon colors and weird accents. A quite good replay of an earlier generation's attempt to accommodate culture in the church.

DESTROY DESTROY

Yeah, so I just returned from pulling a ceiling down with a pretty awesome tool.  It was rather like a legionary's spear, but got wider at the tip and had a round divot at the other end.  Oh, and after we were done with the ceiling, we ripped up the floor.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is manliness.  I was, of course, doing it for work-study, but in reality it is so maddeningly fun to destroy stuff that I would have paid to rip that house apart.

In other news, I'm finally doing site visits for my internship.  A childhood spent following my dad around on building inspections came in handy the past two days.  I knew what to look for - the cornice detaching, loose shingles, holes in the windows, cracks in the foundation, water damage, anything looking out of place or crooked.  It feels really good to be out on my feet, taking pictures of things and then returning to an office to analyze them.  Whatever I end up doing for a career, it had better include time inside and time outside.

Of course, there are some downsides to every positive week.  I deleted an hour's worth of work while in the act of saving the spreadsheet.  That was about the most depressing thing of the week.  And I almost crashed a car into a line of bushes, mostly because I had a foot of dust on my glasses and was too busy yapping my jaws off.  Nonetheless, this has been a pretty awesome past few days. 

A Former Convent?

Today's title comes from and email I received yesterday. I was tr ying to arrange a quick inspection for two churches so that's my boss and I could set expectations, etc. However, yesterday, true to Buffalo standards for once, was a miserable day of ice and freezing rain. So we had to reschedule. My boss said she would pick me up at "the former convent" on Wednesday.

At first, I was a bit puzzled about where the former convent was. I'm still learning Buffslop typography, you see, and the city is riddled with more churches than Jerusalem. Then, I realized that she meant the Rectory where I have been living. True, at times it's feels like a quasi-monastic establishment and I even have a crucifix in my room. True, Houghton's gender ratio is as bad as a convent. But we're not a convent.

So what is the purpose of this little tirade. I could be talking about my internship, but it's dreary right now. To fill my sudden spare time yesterday, I read The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. Hence, the monastic theme.

Brother Lawrence was that rarity, a humble and pious man. He understood human weakness, and his writing is infused with a deep sense of compassion and love. I rather wish I could study under him in person these days. He seems a truly Christ-like man. One day, I want to be like him.

Second Sunday

So I'm not much of a Pentecostal.  Nothing personal, of course, but there is something foreign about speaking in tongues that makes my ultimately High Church mind rebel.  It is a perfectly legitimate form of Christianity, but not really to my taste.  Today, I went to my second Pentecostal church in as many weeks.  It was...Pentecostal?  Also, it was fairly immigrant and therefore African, with lots of children running in the aisles and arm-wrestling on the floor.  It was a different, but refreshing, type of church.

Then I went to a coffee shop.  I rather like coffee shops, even if the coffee is overpriced.  Culture happens in coffee shops, around the little faux-antique tables, over cups of coffee.  Business deals, book deals and great ideas all have their genesis in the coffee shop. I have always wondered if I should start a church in a coffee shop...

End of Week 2

My first week of internship is over, and somehow it seems surreal to think about the past two weeks as a mere collection of 14 days.  After all, I've had enough experiences in teh past two weeks to make up for a month at Houghton or at home.  I've begun to master a new city's geography.  I know more than I ever cared to about the ugly uses people put their desacralized churches to (I mean, a loading dock, really?)

Since I last wrote, I have traveled to Houghton (Wednesday).  That morning was spent in more data collection and entry.  I made a major breakthrough methodologically (meaning I discovered how to use Google Maps on my iPad) and somehow discovered 30 churches in 4 hours.  I still haven't repeated that feat.

Then it was a quick hop down to Houghton.  Frankly, it felt weird to see people dashing about to their classes and their clubs and their lectures and their homework like ants in a beehive.  Or perhaps I was the ant in the beehive, because I knew there was order and structure to the chaos I saw around me but I was no longer a native to it.  Five weeks since my most recent semester at Houghton and already the giddiness baffles me.  Still, I got to see friends and plan a blood drive.

Thursday was a bit of a slow day.  I got dreadfully lost looking for the historical society, but other than that it was a rather nondescript day.  Class with Chuck was interesting, though, since it was about the education system in cities.  As a lifelong teacher and student, I was fascinated and repulsed by the magnitude of the problems in the city school system.  We still segregate, of course, but socioeconomic segregation may be even worse than racial segregation, since it culls the smartest and most productive into an Honors High School while the children of lower performers never get exposed to another way of life.  How do we break this cycle of social inequality?

Friday gave me no answers, though it did highlight another aspect of the problem.  The mainline, posh churches of the old downtown long ago moved out of the city.  The established middle-class churches have also moved out.  An endless cycle of start-ups and quick solutions have plagued the churches of the West Side and the East Side in Buffalo.  Some church buildings had had three to five owners since they were sold by the original congregation in the 90s.The church, in this case, look suspiciously like a governmental aid program or a microwave cure.

We went to the Irish Classical Theatre last night as well.  The play was about the IRA, I suppose, and the British, though it seemed that everyone was rather muddle about why precisely they hated each other.  It, at times, tried to present the characters as victims of their times.  But Leslie, the English private, and Patrick, the IRA vet, seem to have been catching on to the true nature of things at the end.  They weren't victims, they were potential victims.  There are very few heroes in teh world, but there are many people who must resist the seduction of being victimized.  Even when Leslie was shot, at the end, we realized that his death was a triumph in absurdity.  It was, in fact, an Absurdist play that seemed eerily coherent, like a thought that has been hovering at the edge of the brain for hours.



And today, now, is Saturday.  I slept in (for possibly the last time all semester).  I lounged the day away chatting with family, taking walks, etc.  Now I'm about to plunge into the hedonism of a game night.  

Data Entry

So I woke up this morning, yawned, looked at my clock, realized dimly that it hadn't gone off at 7...and realized I had less than an hour to get to my internship.  Naturally, I rolled over and slept for another 20 minutes.  Then I struggled awake, brushed my teeth, gulped down a piece of chocolate zucchini bread and headed out the door.  It was spraying nasty wetness outside, so I decided to take the car.

Big mistake.  Finding parking in downtown Buffalo is a bit of a trick.  There are massive parking lots everywhere, which is deceptive at first.  Parking is dirt-cheap - $3 or so.  But...it's for M&T employees ONLY, or St. Michael's Parishioners ONLY, or tenants of the little apartment complex that only we know about ONLY.  All other, normal human beings can go huddle in a puddle three streets over where the parking is $.50 an hour, with a two hour limit.

I walked in ten minutes late, but then again I had been given a range of times to come in.  I have, frankly, the best bosses ever.  I've been given enough guidance to not be lost, but this project is what I make of it.  I spent the morning researching which parishes belong to which historic buildings, and which historic buildings are now decommissioned.

Buffalo is deeply, profoundly Catholic.  There are about 2 Catholic parishes to every Protestant church, and no one Protestant denomination comes even near the mark on its own strength.  For this reason, I feel as though Buffalo is the most deeply European city in America.  The churches look like European churches.  Not the fake American Gothic Revival stuff but genuine Lombard Renaissance, etc architecture.  One, Holy Trinity RC, was copied almost exactly from similar churches in Italy.  The interior decoration was done by skilled immigrant craftsmen, often journeyman or master craftsman who continued from their work they had left behind in the Old World.

Today, the descendants have moved into the suburbs in large numbers.  The communities move out in the same direction that they settled in the cities - the Italians north, the Germans east, the Poles even more east and the Irish south.  The urban core is now inhabited by a remnant of the WASP population on Elmwood, a remnant of the ethnic neighborhoods, a large African-American population and the increasing Asian, African and Middle Eastern immigrants.

I wonder if, in fifty years, the Karen, Burmese, Nepali, Somali and Iraqi neighborhoods will look as solidly like their home countries as the German, Irish, Italian and Polish neighborhoods did.  Will we have graceful Burmese temples dotting the landscape?  Or, since so many of these new immigrants are joining non-denominational, charismatic churches, will something else develop?  Is there something intrinsic to Buffalo, something in the cold and fierce winter perhaps, that keeps the minds of the immigrant on the joys of home?  I may live long enough to find out.

Interning in Sunny Buffalo

Buffalo FINALLY has snow.  Now, usually this isn't particularly noteworthy.  The first snow comes about seven minutes after the last snowfall of the year (no, I don't exaggerate), except for this year.  There was a smattering of snow around Christmastime I'm told, and a freak storm in October, but until Saturday there was no real snow.  Even now there is only about two inches.  The wind has been really fierce, though.

My internship started today at Preservation Buffalo Niagara.  This organization is devoted entirely to preserving Buffalo's historic treasures.  Unlike other, more expansive cities such as New York City or even my native Allentown, PA, Buffalo rarely tears down old buildings.  Sure, it happens, and Buffalo is hardly a green or preservation friendly city.  However, who wants to be going to all the trouble and labor of tearing down an old building and putting up a new one when it is freezing cold outside?

Thus, churches get reused or refurbished.  A new congregation buys up the old building from a faltering one.  A charter school opens in an old German parish.  Or, in my favorite Buffalo adaptation of a church building, a swanky condominium replaces the diocesan convent.  In and among this reuse, the life of the city simply goes on without heeding the preservationist's call for history or the progressive's call for modernization.

My internship, as should be obvious, deals with churches and the historic integrity of their buildings.  As might also be obvious, I love churches for their own sake.  I am a deeply religious person fascinated by the urban church.  It seems strange that today in the minds of many evangelicals that the church is a rural, or at least non-urban, institution.  Our largest churches are all suburban megachurches, while our mainline urban parishes dwindle and other churches splinter.

And yet, on Buffalo's East Side, the life of the church continues.  The pastor at True Bethel Baptist Church, Darius Pridgen, runs an organization that is part typical African-American charismatic, part social services organization and part business.  His church buses congregants in on church buses, where they can worship in a converted shopping center or eat at a Subway.  Do not be cynical, however, for the pastor was the first person in the church to receive the training to run the Subway.  This isn't commericialized church, but a church actively engaged in commercial, social and even governmental activities.  Pridgen is a quite controversial city councilmember.

So it will be interesting to trace the past and present strengths of the urban church in Buffalo.  How have the types of churches changed over time?  What is their attitude towards church buildings and finance?  Where did immigrants settle, and how did this shape the current situation of urban churches in Buffalo?  Why are German Catholic parishes dwindling, but African-American charismatic Catholic parishes moving in to the same buildings?  Why did certain ethnic groups flee the city, and what will bring them back?

Mystery upon mystery.

Days 2 and 3: The First Flight

No, really, I've already missed a day.  Alternatively, I've learned I have to keep some sort of journal for class, starting next week.  So this might wrap into that.

Yesterday, the 10th, was a very slow day.  I woke up at 8 (early for me) and did virtually nothing but read Patrick Rothfuss until, oh, somewhere around 2.  Then I went to class - a syllabus day - and then cooked dinner.  More reading, then bed.  Wow, easily the most homebound day I've had in a while.  Alternatively, I got over my lingering cold from Christmas Break.

Today, I woke at 8 (I sense a pattern developing, but my internship will be starting then...) and then drove into Houghton.  The drive there was pretty easy.  I had a classmate in the car to talk to, and plenty of sunshine.  Then, magically, I found myself back on campus.  But I was a visitor, despite remaining a student, and had no classes.  I had even forgotten chapel was going on.

The long and short was that I found myself running into people I knew, and some I didn't even know I knew.  Everyone commented, asking why I was in.  I explained I had some meetings and SGA business to attend to. In reality, I was in because I was more than a little curious what it was like to return and smile smugly while everyone rushed off to classes.

It was downright wrong.  I'm not ready to be the guy with the car, the Kindle and the job in the city.  Or the unpaid internship and service-learning work-study in the city.  Whatever.

And then I decided to leave.  Alone.  And I decided to follow my GPS.  Alone.  It led me to a little road hardly a lane and a half wide, which was also covered in ice.  The long and short of it was that I ended up fishtailing about twenty times before finally reaching a plowed street.  But, in the end, no one died and I ended up back in Buffalo.

Day 1: Settling In

A long time ago, Celtic monks went on long journeys called peregrinatios.  The purpose of these journeys was, of course, Christian ministry of some form or another.  Sts. Boniface and Wilifrid were some of these traveling missionaries.  Like Christian explorers of earlier and later times, they did much more than evangelistic work, often involving diplomacy, what today we would call anthropological work, missionary work and simple exploration.  The point is that they left the functioning and coherent society of Celtic Christianity, which when ranked by late first millennium European standards was fairly organized.  They wandered out into the countryside, seeking the hairy barbarians of the Central European woods.  Behind them often came the governmental power of the Franks or whatever petty kinglet happened to be patronizing them at that point, spreading the fledgling Western civilization.

This was a civilization to countryside shift.  Western civilization has retained its admiration for those who desire to leave the organization of civilization in order to achieve something lasting and beautiful in the countryside.  It was with similar impulses that the founders of Houghton College pulled out of the developing cities of Western New York - Buffalo and Rochester - in order to found a refuge of Christian piety far away from the degrading city.  Similarly, Henry David Thoreau personifies this emphasis on returning to nature, of leaving behind the decadence and depravity of the urbanized life in order to protect an inner spirituality.

However, my personal journey is different.  I grew up in a small town quickly being enveloped in the suburbs. I was caught between a rural life that flourished at times only five miles from town, and an urban life that flourished eight miles north of town.  When it came time to go to college, I chose through a variety of circumstances a college in the middle of the cow pastures.  I was living the Thoreau dream, or perhaps the Peregrinatio dream.

All very well, but is this truly the necessary shift in Christian piety?  Is the countryside always better?  Are cities decadent and corrupt?  I remember throughout my first two years at Houghton feeling a deep sense of relief and enjoyment when I saw the lights of Allentown or Bethlehem and remembered there was more to life than cows and hay and students.  I remember grasping at the conveniences of suburban and urban life - quick access to groceries, music and culture.

So this semester I'm studying in Buffalo.  I'm doing an internship for a historic preservation organization working on preservation efforts in historic churches.  I'm living in the city, driving in the city and working in the city.  I don't really know what to expect, but I know that whatever happens it will be different from my past few years.  Feel free to journey along with me.