People, People Everywhere

This is an elf I passed yesterday morning right outside Grand Central Station on my way into work. This is a prime location for marketers to "petal their wares" so-to-speak and I'm amazed at the oddities that I so often see. A couple of weeks ago there were about 50 Santa's wearing shorts beneath there long jackets promoting Augusten Burroughs' new book You Better Not Cry. Hilarious.

Usually, it's just people passing out fliers, pamphlets, and brochures, but I have received a free sandwich from Pepperidge Farm, free chocolate- with coupons attached, and free flavored water.

There are so many people in this city that at some point, things stop surprising you. When you live here, sadly enough you do start to ignore it all. You begin to think that everyone looking at you saying, "Excuse me, sir" is about to ask you for a dollar. Chris told just this week a man was standing on the sidewalk and motioned for Chris's attention. Fighting his desire to keep shuffling past, Chris stopped. "Which way is 86th Street?" the man asked.

You never know. Things may not be as they appear to be, or they very well may be. But does that matter? Last night Chris and I were discussing one of our pet-peeves we have with the Christian religion. Religion with a capital R. Christians always want to convert people, people far, far away- like in Africa. They want to go in and tell people what's right and who's wrong. And not that I'm against evangelism, but shouldn't we start by loving our neighbor. The boss that you dislike, the person in the apartment above you that plays really loud music at 3:30AM, the neighbor who's dog poops in your yard, the friend who quit calling you so she must be a snob. We have to be peacemakers. We have to.

I'm just saying that in New York there are so many freaking people that need love. I want to smother them all with fresh flowers and Starbucks gift cards, and dinner over at my house (even if it's just taco soup and just a one bedroom apartment.) Because after all, it's not our choice who God loves. He's not like us. "He loves because that's the only place real life is. He dwells in love. It's not our right to NOT love."

Sunday, our pastor shared a sermon that really, really shook me up regarding relationships and people and how we interact with everyone we come in contact with, daily. (I will write more about this later- I've been marinating in it.) I think about this city, how big it is and how many souls- lives- people live here. There are a lot of opportunities to hug, smile, listen, buy a coffee. I truly believe in being called to cities- and NYC is mine, for now anyway. I don't need to go to Africa.