appreciating the great, the small, in the big apple

This weekend, I had the opportunity to take a trip outside my zone, and bus up to New York City to visit my dear friend, Elaina. What an amazing experience. I'm not sure I expected anything more than to see Elaina once more before I accepted the start of summer, but it turned out to be so much more than that. Surprise.

I'm always amazed by the way that God uses the great and the small things. So often, we overlook the small things in the present, only to see them contribute to the bigger picture much farther down the line. It's often much easier to use the great things to make a great statement. But sometimes, I think the great things make a subtle impact, and that the small things are immediately great.

New York is a great place. The entirety of the city is just dramatic, a skyline of buildings reaching to the heavens, amazing feats of American architecture and physics. Jam-packed with people and things and with the capacity to just be completely overwhelming. I can recall graphic memories of being overwhelmed by city life; Jakarta, Indonesia, full and busy and hazy and loud; and Washington, DC after two days on the road-- equally busy and full, confusing and hurried. But New York didn't hold that same overwhelming feeling for me. I woke up as we were pulling into the city and got my first glimpse of the skyline and thought, this city is tall. I didn't realize DC was so short. But I wasn't overwhelmed, and I wasn't surprised by the lack of feeling overwhelmed until later. That growth-- to feel comfortable in places where once I didn't-- I feel like that subtle growth is just a small symbol of my overwhelmingly great personal growth in the last nine months. Subtlety from greatness.

While I was here, I also attended a church service at a Spanish-speaking Lutheran church in the Bronx. The service was small and spontaneous, conducted half in Spanish and half in English, but completely in the presence of God. I can't imagine myself being aware of God's presence in such a place a year ago-- or, at the very least, sitting in the service and being completely preoccupied with the facade of the building, the flow of the service. I had never been to such a church before. But I found I rather like it, smiling and laughing during the service as I might not in either of my other churches. Churches like this one give me hope that the body of Christ belongs to everyone.

After church, I sat down with Elaina and her friend Isaac Everett, a recent seminary grad from Union Theological Seminary and member of the emergent group/intentional community, Transmission, and had a wonderful conversation over lunch (in a NYC diner!). Our conversation inspired me to think. There were so many thoughts carried over from lunch, I wish I had taken notes! Elaina and I took a long walk through Central Park afterwards, when I took this photograph:

We discussed how easily it is to judge people. How our perceptions of others have the ability to influence our thoughts in such a way that it alters our ability to see Christ in them. And how our inability to be transparent to our brothers and sisters in Christ, when we keep secrets and hide the parts of ourselves we are less proud of, can also alter their ability to see Christ within us. We miss the beauty in God's creation when we hide among the fields of others like us. We miss the beauty of God's creation when we fail to look closely enough. Great impact from something small.

The weekend also included a lot of walking, a lot of good conversation with my closest Wesley sister, a lot of great food, and NYC sights. Plus, amazing hospitality, buses, buses, the Subway, and ferries!

I'm sure that I'll be back.