its a mad mission

One month early, but could be coming home as soon as Thursday if his lungs are up to it.

My brother is a great dad.

Mom is doing well.

The promise of snow was one of the factors that nudged me north. As I sat in my air conditioned magazine office last March, contemplating December’s palm tree Christmas tree cover, I knew it wasn’t my thing.Unfortunately, my visions of a frosted city have been scraped away by the snowplow of reality. Winter here, so far, has involved mostly just cold, cold rain. It couldn’t possibly melt the wicked witch of the west. This city’s temperature sits perpetually at 33 degrees, and what should be light, white and fluffy is dense and bone-chilling. I’m convinced even if the temperature did go below the magic number, the heat radiating from the houses and sidewalks would melt anything within ten feet of the earth’s surface.

**

I wish I had a picture of the following story, because it was all very surreal. I was blacking out on the train and platform steps on my commute yesterday (Deb had the day off), and by the time I got to the hallway at Union Square, I could do little more than huddle against the station wall and watch a thousand shoes stride past. An officer came over with his dog, Magnum, and asked if I was ok. I wasn’t sure at that point, so we waited five minutes before I tried standing back up. The black clouds rolled in again, and he told me he was going to call the paramedic over. Well, the five paramedics who showed up within 60 seconds were dressed like firemen and all very eager to help. I love New York. They ushered me to a police substation, and two more EMTs came. At this point I was tying up no fewer than 8 city employees. Then they called for an ambulance, and I had to insist, no, I don’t need an emergency room, just some food and water. The paramedics soon dispersed, but the main one sat with me and made a bunch of recommendations. The funniest (well, maybe not that funny) was: do not stand too close to the subway tracks, because if you faint…I giggled and he looked at me and said he was serious. Right. Yes, sir. My low-oxygen brain still laughed quietly to itself.P.S. I saw the doctor last night and everything’s ok.

**

We’ve begun a feeding ministry at our church. Every night this upscale grocer called “The Garden” gives us plastic containers of leftover soup and salad to distribute throughout Greenpoint. This neighborhood has no homeless shelter, so I thought it odd that people would stay there in the middle of winter. Bill explained: They stay here because they need their Polish community. Most of them don’t speak English (though we finally met one, a young guy named Thomas, who could translate for us), and need people with whom they can communicate. As a shelter substitute, Thomas has an ATM card, and he and a few others swipe that to get access to the bank lobby on cold nights. Others sleep on mattresses down by the East River warehouses. We try to leave soup there too. We’re still learning much about what this ministry needs to look like. How do we really help these people, some who are homeless because of hard life situations, others because of disability, others because they don’t or won’t work? They each have a path that got them to this point, and need to find the one out. We don’t want to help them do that because we’re somehow “better” or “successful.” But rather to demonstrate our common humanity and worth, and that Christ brings meaning to every person, not just to people who can pay rent. Pray for us as we try to figure out what that looks like for our church.

“What’s oat meat?” I asked my friends at the diner last week, wondering if this was yet another odd polish delicacy. From the breakfast menu context, I soon figured it out. I’m going to have to bring my copyeditor mentor, Susannah Barba, to this restaurant when she visits next week.   


      It takes talent to fit these all on one menu. Thankfully, they are the Shakespeares of diner food–can’t beat the homefries and bacon!

So here’s the thing: I haven’t been blogging. Not that I don’t enjoy it or wanted to take a sabbatical – I think it’s a mixture of factors. One, blogging isn’t a shiny new toy any more. Second, Christmas is a busy time, going out of town and hosting people coming in. Third, I’m getting used to my surroundings here, and find things less shocking and bloggable. Still, there’s always some thoughts mulling around the attic (Thanks to Shel Silverstein, a favorite author of my childhood, for the illustration).

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When you travel by car, you see the transition of the landscape around you. If you are driving from Granby to Hartford, visuals tell you the city is getting closer: little by little, strip malls replace hay fields and sky scrapers replace silos. I don’t have the advantage of such hints here. I walk down a set of stairs in Brooklyn, surrounded by 3-story apartments. When I come back out, I’m surrounded by high rises. From there I hop into a box, and when I get out I have the ability to look down on the roofs of 20-story buildings. I’d like to have a better grasp of this whole 45 minutes, and sometimes imagine that the subway is made of glass and I can see the apartments grow distant through the East River water (though I’m not actually sure it’s clear enough to see through), and then as I go into Manhattan’s belly, look around at the buildings whizzing by me. Furthermore, in my windowed elevator, I would shoot toward the sky and watch as I transcend all the cars and noise and grime. I just want a better sense of the journey. This probably seems odd, but remember, I spend a lot of time underground and in little boxes.

 ***

 When my little brother was in third grade at Kearns Elementary, they decided to build an addition to the school. Being a fan of all things motorized and engined, he spent the days gazing out the school windows at the dump trucks and bull dozers and construction workers. He, his teacher and his mom all agreed that he didn’t learn much that spring. Those things would never interest me. I thought. Outside my window at work they are constructing a 30-floor (so far) building, and my office mate and I watch it all the time. We discuss how cool the cantilever crane system is, if that netting would actually catch the workers if they fall, and what kind of person works such a treacherous job. “That crane just freaks me out,” Cathy says. I thought I was girlier than this. Maybe it’s because I work at an engineering magazine now – I knew it would wear off on me eventually.

 ***

 I still feel bad when I reject the fliers people pass out on sidewalks around here. Sometimes I’ll take one if I’m feeling especially sensitive that day. As one comedian put it, “Here, let me throw that out for you.” It’s better that than being just one more person causing them to question their worth in this world. And one time, I got a free 16oz. Jamba Juice out of it.

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 What is hope? Reading through Romans 5 with Bill the other night, I was once again stirred by the thought of what hope for a Christ follower really means.

5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

 This is not some hope without assurance of it eventually happening, or hoping for something that probably won’t happen. “I hope the train’s on time,” “I hope my face stops breaking out,” “I hope my beef stew turns out ok.” This is a sure hope of eternal life, based on the fact that God has already proven himself true to us by sending Christ to the cross to die for our sins. When he states we have a hope in Him, this isn’t a question. It’s hope in a promise promised by a God who never lies. Who can’t lie. Who tells us that those who accept his free gift have eternal life.

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 I am the proud owner of a a brand new used VCR. I’ve been the owner of a collection of videos I got for a dollar a piece at a garage sale for months now, but they aren’t doing me much good sitting in a basket. There is a junk store on my way home, so I swung in last night in hopes of digging up a VCR. While the store manager was testing it for me, he mentioned that he didn’t even realized he had one right now. He said he can never keep them in stock very long. Sounds like quite the popular antique.

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 On the horizon: at church, we are working on lots: the new location, new service, new homeless feeding ministry, etc. At work, I’ve successfully taken all design work (cover and features) in-house, and am really looking forward to finally designing the full 64 pages every month. At home, I can’t wait to have a number of visitors in town over the next few months, and also hope to take a few trips myself (read: snowboarding in NH) and to explore some more of the city. There is a design museum I’ve been dying to hit, as well as some great Broadway. Tomorrow I think I’m taking a tour of the Customs House/Titanic exhibit. If you are ever in the area, or not but want to come visit, give me a call!