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.