Sabbatical rest in New York City. Some would argue that to be a contradiction. For me, it is a feast for the soul… and the stomach.
It was a perfect Sunday afternoon on the Upper West Side. A fifteen minute wait at the Popover Café was well worth it for the strawberry butter alone. But patience and luck afforded me the coveted corner booth with ample room for the Sunday New York Times and a basket overflowing with hot, oversizedpopovers, as flaky and airy as they are enormous.
“Out of Many Homes, One?” The headline caught my attention, along with the elaborate five story floor plan on the front page of the city section. A landlord has been locked in a battle for several years to remove rent stabilized tenants from his Lower East Side building, many of whom have lived there for three decades or more, in order to convert their 15 small apartments into one 11,000 sq. ft. home — his.
It’s such gross exaggerations that make NYC such a wonderful spiritual guide, drawing you down a path of such righteous indignation, luring you to pontificate by yourself over brunch how no one needs an 11,000 sq. ft. home, except maybe that family that has 18 children whose names all begin with ‘J’. And surely no one with a conscience would take away as wanton luxury what others need simply to survive.
When is enough enough? When does faith actually reign in our desire to grab hold of as much as we can, simply because we can, and find virtue in taking just what we need? It does in my head all the time. I’m very grounded in faith in my own mind. It’s my actions that trip me up most of the time. Restraint is hard enough for me at the salad bar. But when it bumps up against a cultural religion that preaches, “Bless yourself,” it’s hard to tell sometimes which choir I’m singing with. Am I really concerned about the displaced tenants or am I just jealous of the man’s five story Manhattan home? Yes. It’s kind of like driving a hybrid car. I am fueled by faith in Christ until I run out of energy, or my self-worth needs a monetary or material or makeover boost, and then I switch over to guzzling everything that the world reminds me I need and deserve.
Just take a look at my closet, or my pantry, or my garage. Am I the only one with a back up microwave or two out of three sections in my closet with clothes I cannot wear – the ones for when I lose weight and the ones for when I gain back more than I started with? “Out of Many Homes, One?” How much of what I have ought to find a home with someone who really needs it? Isn’t that part of the miracle of abundance? Having what we need and still having twelve full baskets left over to share with others? Or am I a product of the myth of scarcity, going through life trying to fill all twelve baskets for myself?
I wonder sometimes if we haven’t created a hybrid religion to accommodate our cultural wants and needs and convinced ourselves that it’s better for the spiritual environment. Ours anyway.
…but does it change the world?
“I wonder sometimes if we haven’t created a hybrid religion to accommodate our cultural wants and needs and convinced ourselves that it’s better for the spiritual environment.”
Jayne, I know what you mean. I am guilty of putting the cart before the horse and then telling myself it’s right. I do this way too often. But the Bible repeatedly reminds me that Christ MUST be the foundation for all of life. I have to daily seek God’s graces through Jesus Christ because I have a track record of COMPLETELY failing otherwise.
Fight the hybrids!
Perhaps there is a correlation between attempts to facilitate congregants becoming disciples of Christ and the lack of discipline (obesity, life style, work ethic, etc.) exhibited by the some facilitators.