An alien abduction is about the only explanation I can muster regarding our recent family trip to Chicago.
We had it planned for awhile, but we didn’t fully work out the details until the last week or really when we got there. The purpose of our trip was to visit our friends, Carmen, Mike, Jesse and Elan, who have recently moved to Chicago from Austin, so Carmen could finish seminary. They live on Sesame Street. Not really, but they might as well. They only need a giant prehistoric furry elephant lumbering down the alley and a monster in the trashcan. The rest is the same. The stoop, the courtyard filled with people, the school just down the street with a US map on the concrete basketball court. It was really like falling into the Sesame Street set–and these kids from the wide-open Texas loved it.
The word “differences” was ringing in my ears. Sometimes a bit of a Godly Play story just hangs with me. Even if I’ve heard it before, I’ll latch onto to some new favorite part. This time it was from the “Falling Apart” lesson-recognizable to most as the Adam and Eve story. The lingering text is:
The differences also did something wonderful. Now Adam and Eve could take things apart and put them back together again. They could be creators, almost like God. They couldn’t make something out of nothing, but they could make something out of differences.
How liberating and beautiful it is to see differences as our raw material for our own creations. It was a wonderful thing to have ringing in my ears in Chicago–it embodies diversity AND it is one fertile, creative place.
We walked or took the train most everywhere-that was a huge difference, right off the bat from Austin. But, that was great because not only did we lighten our carbon footprint and exercise–but we could see people. As you passed, you’d look in their eyes and nod or say hello. You could appreciate the beautiful saxophone music under the bridge and notice how stylish comfortable shoes could be. I felt connected to be in the web of the city. We went to the most breathtaking monuments to creativity and differences: the Art Institute, the Field Museum and the Robie House–the details of which could be an entire post on its own. I’ve now added museums right there with nature as those contemplative places that you must be fully present in the now and might get a glimpse of God. We went to two worships, both the Blessing of the Animals, St. James Episcopal Cathedral and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago’s Monday chapel. A well-placed bark is always a blessed juxtaposition to liturgy.
I know you’re curious about the space aliens. I don’t really remember the actual aliens, but still I argue that is the only explanation. It happened on Friday night. You see, our friend Carmen, not known for her singing or musical ability (I didn’t say bad–just not known) has joined a Gospel Choir. At this point insert the image of a spaceship dropping me, Carmen and Duke in the middle of a South Chicago Church Revival. Oh yes, it was cool. Different–absolutely. Creative–totally. It was an old Lutheran church, and probably many of the old folks had been baptized there as babies. Just about every part of it was different from the worship I am accustom to, and that made the things that were the same stick out. The hymnal in the pews were the same, and I knew all the words by heart to one of the songs–although I’ve not ever sung it so soulfully. The old folks were at the front and the youth at the back. The chicken and bundt cake at the pot luck was made with the same care. The only difference between my grandmother’s hand and one of their’s was the shade of the skin. It was a happy abduction.
For me, this trip became how I played with the story ringing in my ears, and it was a wonderful place to play. Chicago (or I wonder if any place that is not our home) can highlight our differences as points of creativity and growth. I wonder if differences ARE the parts of humanity that connect the many ways we are created in God’s image? I wonder if we are more like God because of our differences, than because of our likenesses?