A few weeks ago Cheryl and I visited New York City for the first time in many years. The sights, sounds and smells, along with the teeming throng of humanity flooding the streets of Manhattan, registered in my brain, “Warning: sensory overload!” Here are a few things I noticed:
Since my last visit to NYC, billboard-mania has spread like a virus from Times Square proper to a huge swathe of Midtown. The ad companies are competing fiercely to produce the biggest, brightest, flashiest signs on the planet—all, of course, to stimulate commercial activity (i.e., to get at your pocketbook). The bustle of tourist busses and taxicabs under the neon lights made me think of John Bunyan’s “Vanity Fair” in Pilgrim’s Progress. And yet, I had to admit that, despite all my cynicism, this shrine to commerce and fashion and stardom tugged at my heart. And I could imagine how people end up living for fleeting, God-neglecting, yet oddly appealing rewards of wealth, pleasure and fame.
We also steered away from the glitzy storefronts and “huddled masses” for a long walk in Central Park (one goal of which was to identify sites from certain scenes in the movie, “Enchanted”). This was a highlight—except for the blisters my feet acquired. It felt like an oasis fenced off from the pressures of the world by the wall of tall buildings on all sides. A huge patch of green on a concrete island, it struck me how Central Park is an image of the church: the fellowship of God’s people who love and encourage each other form a “place” of refreshment and a focal point of striking, counter-cultural love and unity here in our fractured, frenzied world (John 13:34-35; 17:20-23).
Of course, we wanted to visit Ground Zero. A tour of St. Paul’s Chapel (across Church Street from the WTC site) was sobering—the pictures of 9/11 chaos, badges of countless rescue workers from all over the world, photos of loved ones lost that day… The mood in that sanctuary was very different from Times Square. Suddenly all the great prizes of consumerism were irrelevant, and all the perks of fame and fortune vanished: lives were lost on 9/11—lives of Wall Street executives and minimum wage workers, the old and the young, men, women and children, people a melting pot of ethnic backgrounds. In an odd way, the Lord used Ground Zero to help me get the big picture in perspective: we’re “just passing through” this life (Hebrews 11:13-16), and what matters most is knowing Christ and making him known!
Since my last visit to NYC, billboard-mania has spread like a virus from Times Square proper to a huge swathe of Midtown. The ad companies are competing fiercely to produce the biggest, brightest, flashiest signs on the planet—all, of course, to stimulate commercial activity (i.e., to get at your pocketbook). The bustle of tourist busses and taxicabs under the neon lights made me think of John Bunyan’s “Vanity Fair” in Pilgrim’s Progress. And yet, I had to admit that, despite all my cynicism, this shrine to commerce and fashion and stardom tugged at my heart. And I could imagine how people end up living for fleeting, God-neglecting, yet oddly appealing rewards of wealth, pleasure and fame.
We also steered away from the glitzy storefronts and “huddled masses” for a long walk in Central Park (one goal of which was to identify sites from certain scenes in the movie, “Enchanted”). This was a highlight—except for the blisters my feet acquired. It felt like an oasis fenced off from the pressures of the world by the wall of tall buildings on all sides. A huge patch of green on a concrete island, it struck me how Central Park is an image of the church: the fellowship of God’s people who love and encourage each other form a “place” of refreshment and a focal point of striking, counter-cultural love and unity here in our fractured, frenzied world (John 13:34-35; 17:20-23).
Of course, we wanted to visit Ground Zero. A tour of St. Paul’s Chapel (across Church Street from the WTC site) was sobering—the pictures of 9/11 chaos, badges of countless rescue workers from all over the world, photos of loved ones lost that day… The mood in that sanctuary was very different from Times Square. Suddenly all the great prizes of consumerism were irrelevant, and all the perks of fame and fortune vanished: lives were lost on 9/11—lives of Wall Street executives and minimum wage workers, the old and the young, men, women and children, people a melting pot of ethnic backgrounds. In an odd way, the Lord used Ground Zero to help me get the big picture in perspective: we’re “just passing through” this life (Hebrews 11:13-16), and what matters most is knowing Christ and making him known!
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