rain

it rained today----

just wanted to point this out

FYI

Callie Mills Morgan Rocks!!!

I am bored with reading

The other day I told my sister that I was tired of reading. Well most of you would think, “Of course! Reading is boring.” However, my sister responded in shock at such news. Well, I must clarify my statement. I was tired of reading; tired of reading article after article for my classes. I can only spend so long reading about methods of writing curriculum and how to develop a multicultural history program. However, in the midst of all this reading I took time to actually read.

I will never be tired of really reading. During my lunch break the other day I went up stairs to read. If you don’t know, I work at a Barnes and Noble. So upstairs I go. First, I do the most important part of reading: I bought a brownie. One must always have snakes close by while reading. Next I went and found the book I wanted to read. The reading for the day was a play by Edward Albee called Zoo Story. The play was recommend by Ashley in response to my recent encounter in the park (see the post below), and anything recommended by Ashley automatically goes at the top of my reading list! After getting my brownie and my book, I had to find a place to sit. Now this was somewhat difficult, since the bookstore was so busy. In the end, I found a nice spot by the window on the fourth floor. For the next hour I was in a whole other word. This world was not made up of classrooms and students, articles and debates, or friends and dramas. No; for that hour I read about a man and his encounter with dogs and humans and in the end his encounter with humanity.

While escaping to another world is part of reading, it is not the reason I enjoyed this lunch time play. No, Albee provided me with insight into the life of someone else. Granted this person may not be real, but he is real enough. If he came forth from Albee’s mind he is a part of Albee and therefore is real to him, and now he is real to me. When I see someone in the park sitting on bench, I will think of him and wonder if it is he. Moreover, if a writer is able to write the perfect character, and some do, he is not only real he becomes a part of me. A couple of examples are Ender (from Ender's Game by Orsen Scott Card) or Quentin (from Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and Absalom Absalom). Some days I find myself thinking like Ender. These are great days; days laden with moral debate and self love mixed with remorse. However, the days that are Quentin-esque are filled with darkness and doubt.

I find this an interesting way to label my moods. No, I don’t become Ender or Quentin or Charlie but I am able to say “Ok, today I am thinking like Charlie. Why? What happened to make me like this, and what am I to do. Should I respond like Charlie or should I respond in a more appropriate manner.” Books, literature, characters are the lenses through which I view myself and my situation. They provide me with a clearer understanding of who I am. I guess, in the end, the reason I love these characters is because in them I discover another part of myself.

guy in the park

So yea, I met (well, met is too strong a word)—I encountered a guy in the park today. When I walked up he asked me to watch his stuff for a second. I said sure, thinking he was student. I began to read my article about multiculturalism for class. Upon returning he began to write on his note pad. After a few minutes, he began to ask me to spell words for him. Now, those of you who know me know that I cannot spell, but I was able to spell the words he asked me to spell because they were easy words like touch and angel and cry. Suddenly, I noticed that he was standing over me. I thought this was odd, but before I could respond he asked if he could read me what he had written. I of course responded positively to his poem. Some time passed and two guys walked up to ask for money, stating that they were homeless. The poet then responded that he too was homeless and had lost his apartment just today. As the sun began to set, I started looking for a way to leave without him thinking that I was leaving because of him. While I did not feel entirely comfortable sitting with him and spelling the words for his poem, the reason I was leaving was because the sun had set and I could no longer read. (Moreover, a skinny affluent looking white boy should not be alone in Washington Square Park after dark.)

I have to wonder about his encounter. Obviously this kid was mentally challenged or at the least only functionally literate. I felt bad that he had he lost his apartment and judging from the themes of his poems he had no one to go to. What am I to do? I have no money, and that is not a hyperbole. I honestly have no cash on me nor access money by way of debit card. (My finances are in limbo right now). I guess I did all I could; I treated him like a human being. I still feel weird about the whole situation.

I just finished reading his book about homeless people (http://www.mpbooks.com/bookDetail.asp?isbn=1590524020).

I encourage you all to read it.

just some thoughts

Flipping channels:

I have decided that when walking down the street in New York it is like flipping channels on the TV. I hear snippets of people’s conversations and I associate them with channels. Here is a few:

“I am just tired or pretending…”----Oxygen or Lifetime

“Help out the victims of Katrina”---CNN, Fox, MSNBC etc.

“So who won the tennis match….”---ESPN

“Help out the poor, just a penny man…..”---CBN (or whatever it is called now-the family channel or something”

Crazy people everywhere:

Fifteen years ago (before Giuliani), when New York was scary, if you saw a person walking down the sidewalk talking to themselves, you would think he was crazy. You might even cross the street to avoid him. Today everyone talks to themselves and very few of them are certifiable. Nope! Most of them are everyday people and they are talking everyday people—on their mobile phone!!! It really freaks me out when I am standing on a corner and someone walks up beside me and starts talking. I am startled and I look at them, but they are looking down the street waiting for taxi to pass, but they are still talking to me about the US Open or the dress they bought at Macy’s. I stare at them and wonder what in the world they expect me to say. I don’t know anything about the US Open and I have never been to Macy’s, much less bought a dress there! When they finally realize that I am staring at them waiting for a pause so I can speak, they look at me like I am crazy and cross the road to avoid me! It is at this point that I notice the ear piece. I then I move along on my way and wonder what the dress looked like….

An odd quiet:

New York is a loud place. When you are out during the day you hear a constant stream of horns and sirens and jackhammers and a thousand other sounds. When you are out at night, in the Village at least, there is a constant stream of music flowing from the bars and laughs and greeting raging down the streets. But, I have found that there is a quiet time in the city: the morning. It is not like mornings in the rural south. You don’t wake to the sound of locust or crickets. Here, when you walk around during the morning, there is a heavy quiet. It hangs onto the freshly fixed hair, or the sweaty gym clothes, or the fresh cup from Starbucks. I really can only explain it as humidity. It is the way I felt when I woke up one early morning in the mountains of North Carolina and I sat outside on Aunt Faye’s porch and watched her ancient cat, Fuss (God rest her soul), breath and purr. It is the way I felt when I woke to the gurgle of the Buffalo River in the Ozarks and fog hung over the river basin. The silence of New York is wet and it is heavy.

Is that a soap box or a thinking tree

So yea, I just watched the most depressing movie I have seen since De-lovely. The movie is Kinsey. It is one of those movies like A Beautiful Mind that takes the life of a scientist and makes it into a pop-culture hit. Alfred Kinsey was the first person to do a scientific study of the sexual behavior of humans. (By the way, I cannot recommend the movie. Due to the subject matter it is very graphic, not in the gratuitous way but graphic none-the-less.) Anyway, Kinsey begins his study in order help people who are harmed by a lack of sexual understanding. However, one can see a great correlation between his desire to study sex and the strict religious setting he was raised. I will not venture, in the forum anyway, to discuss this topic. What I want to talk about is a little more sociological than theological.

In the process of studying sex and promoting a less puritanical society, Kinsey found himself and those around him practicing what they preached. The close knit community involved in his research began to practice what we might call “free love.” (However, as he points out he is not studying love because love cannot be “measured” and therefore cannot be studying scientifically.) The practice began to destroy the lives of some of those involved. At the end the movie ends on an upbeat note because it points out that Kinsey did help many people. However, being one that does not too quickly want to shun my puritan ancestors, I must take issue with the movie.

Kinsey’s family is almost shattered when he has an extra-marital sexual encounter. In the end the only thing that saves it is the same thing that saves the marriage depicted in De-lovely: love. You see, his wife loves him enough to stay with and accept that his theories are correct. However, it is his inadequate love for his wife that threatens the marriage again. I really do not think that his affair was out of a lack of love; he believed that sex is what animals do and humans are simply animals. But when someone comes to him and his wife and asks for permission to sleep with her, he agrees. I think that if he honestly loved his wife he would have seen that she really wanted him to say no and not agree to it. He does agree and she begins to experience his world of informal sexual exploration. Their marriage does not end formally nor does their “love” but I think the fullness of their marriage, their relationship as human beings, suffered greatly as a result.

I think we can see this movie and his characters as a microcosm for society in the second half of the twenty century. Yes, I think that a fuller understand of sex and sexuality frees people from the quilt and pain caused by ignorance. However, I also feel that a society that acts as if it were settled by the followers of Bacchus instead of the puritans will suffer (has suffered) greatly. We will forget how to truly love one another, because we begin to see each other as objects and not human-beings. Moreover, and probably more damaging, we begin to see ourselves as sexual creatures instead of the image bearers of God. This happened to Kinsey. When his life, his sexual life, began to fall apart he began to seek pleasure in other ways that brought no pleasure at all, only pain. Our society (or should I say we, you and I, me) has forgotten what it felt like to be innocent and now we seek pleasure in ways that only brings pain. And his pain will kill us and steal from us a real life. Even if in the end we, like Kinsey, see the positive effects of what we have done we will not be able to escape the pain that our lose of innocence has brought us.

That is just what I think, but who am I.

yes, i went to church

Well, today is Sunday, so I went to church. I went to two churches actually, and neither had a steeple. I passed many, many churches with steeples on my way, but I did not stop. I was looking for a certain church. This morning I went to the 411 (you know, the church we came to work with last summer), and tonight I went to the Journey. The two services were very different, but I think one can see a shifting paradigm when looking at these two churches.

The 411 (http://www.the411nyc.com) is a recent, about a year old, Southern Baptist church plant. When I got to the address I notices the small, unobtrusive sign on the sidewalk that told anyone who was looking that The 411 meet there. I was greeted by Tori and made my way to the third floor. The church meets in a dance practice room. You know, the kind with mirrors on the walls. The room was small, but come to find out it was the perfect size for the group. I was greeted by several members and several staff. Some knew me, some did not. I think my attendance had been announced to a few, but that is cool. They were all very kind and encouraging. The service began with a worship service that was punctuated with prayer for the hurricane victims. The sermon was not a sermon, per se. Scott is starting a month long look at their first year. I will kind of bring yall up to date. Since we where here last year, they have not grown in numbers a great deal. They are running about forty people. The independent film about The 411, Fishers of Men¸ has been finished and has been broadcast on public TV in Europe. As a result of the film, The 411 has been invited by the BBC to the World Cup 2006 to represent American Christianity in a film about evangelicals at the World Cup. The church is growing and it seems that God has chosen to grow in an unobtrusive way so that they can work outside of the traditional Sunday service. For example, this upcoming week they are sponsoring the Damah Film festival. (http://www.the411nyc.com/damah/) I have volunteered to work. I will probably be running the projector. (I am kind of nervous)

The Journey (http://www.nyjourney.com/) was a completely different type of service. I was reminded of Axis, the college age service at Willow Creek in Chicago. When I got to the address, near Madison Square Garden, I noticed a large banner hanging above my head. It announced to all those walking by that the Journey would be meeting here. When I entered I was greeted by some anonymous girl. I made my way into a large theatre and sat with several hundred young people and was as anonymous there as I had been on the street just minutes before. The service consisted of several well made videos; upbeat, contemporary worship; and a sermon with the catchy title, In the Zone. All in all it was very impressive. The Journey is on its way to being of the country’s great mega churches, while not owing a church building.

So which did I like better, which is the best choice for a New Yorker? Well I don’t think the answer is a clear cut as your questions may be. I think we have to think it terms of a paradigm shift. I think the large corporate mega church is a dying paradigm and we are moving into a small, more community based setting. (These are not my ideas—I have read them.)

Anyway, I went to church, but I can’t help but analyze them.