Tuesday: In the City

I love living in the city. I wouldn’t trade for anything the last 16 months that I’ve been fortunate enough to live in Wallingford, Seattle. Sometimes I can convince myself that it’s like living in a little town. Especially on the days when I’m running errands in the morning, and see familiar faces from Cota on the street. Or when I bump into my teacher at the grocery store. And, of course, the view of downtown is amazing.
Herein lies the dichotomy:

One morning, several months ago, I was taking my cockatiels to their vet appointment and I noticed a girl sitting next to her backpack, under the eaves of the Marco Polo hotel building, across the alley from my apartment. (On the other side is a Blue Video store.) I was in a hurry, and for some reason assumed she was a student because of the backpack. When I returned from Burien two hours later, she was still there. From over thirty feet away, I asked her if she was okay. She gave an empty ‘Yeah’ reply, and as I was about to take her comment at face value, I noticed that she was visibly upset, as if she had been crying most of the time that I had been gone. I went inside my cozy apartment, and stewed. I didn't feel comfortable inviting her in, but how does one extend hospitality outside of one’s home? By the time I made some phone calls and got a game plan together, she was gone. Now I always have a crisis phone number in my cell phone, just in case another opportunity comes along for contact, but of course none has presented itself. Yeah, I live just a few feet away from Aurora and I see working women fairly often, but most of the time they ask me where the closest gas station is, or something of that vein. Not for help. Nor would I expect it, I guess. That's probably not my role.

I could wax on about how my city ‘home’ doesn’t allow me to just sit and meditate on a blade of grass for hours on end, or to see my future spread out before me in the clouds. Traffic noise and the possibility for constant distraction, which always go in tandem with densely populated urban areas, make such activities (or lack thereof) nearly impossible. However, as compared to the stigma of being just a few feet away from people whose lives are so different from my own – so lacking in security – these gripes about not being able to commune with nature in its true form just fall like pebbles on a tin can. Hollow, empty, without resonance.

I don’t know how to tie these thoughts into the gospel passages for this week. Some of the OT references are about enemies, but as a friend and I discussed over a beer a few days ago, I can’t remember the last time I’ve truly yearned to have my enemy smoted. Or even when I last had an out-and-out enemy. And the passage about Christ chatting with Elijah’s specter just creeps me out. I don’t know what to make of that, or what it implies about the nature of the afterlife. But, these are my thoughts about the tension that lies within urban dwelling. And that’s all I’ve got.