What’s on Repeat in my Ipod

In case you care my lastest musical obsession is The National’s Boxer.  I recommend starting with “Apartment Story.”

Hands On New York Day

If you happen to live in the city or will be around on Saturday, April 12 volunteer with Forefront at Hands On New York Day.  We’ll be giving New York’s public spaces a spring cleaning.  Great opportunity to serve the city and meet other like-minded people.

The City

I’m coming up on my three month anniversary in New York.  Thank you, thank you, we’re very happy.  Anyway, now that I have a little experience behind me I’ve decided to start doing one of my favorite things - research - on urban centers.  I’ve started with The City: A Global History by Joel Kotkin.  His thesis is that all cities essentially serve three purposes: spiritual, political and economic.  Even in the secular age, successful cities have a spiritual metanarrtive in which citizens are expected to participate.  In New York the spirituality seems especially tied to the economic.  As recession looms we try harder and harder to appeal to the gods of the market. Lower interest rates, print more money, buying and selling the right stock. What does this mean for Christians, not just the economic issues, but the expectation of allegiance?  Do we become the anti-citizen like the early Christians in Rome?  As the majority of the world’s population moves to urban centers there is much to think about. 

The Subway Waits for No One, Even on St. Patrick’s Day

I lead my first team of non-New Yorkers through the city today.  I only lost one.  You see the hard truth of public transportation is that the subway waits for no one.  

I got out of the train and looked back to see that one of the guys was still sitting down. My brain didn’t connect the visual until the doors started to close onto another student who barely pried herself out from between them. And off went the kid to the next stop without a cell phone.  

The story ends well.  He got off at the next stop and met up with us.  But losing a kid in New York on St. Patrick’s Day was not my idea of a perfect day. Perhaps a green beer will help.  Sláinte! (cheers in gaelic)

Museums…sigh

Instead of writing in the blog I’ve been, well, working, but also visiting museums. New York has a museum for almost anything, but I’ve been sticking mainly with modern art and the Ancient Near East. What can I say, I developed a taste for Assyrian art in seminary. The Whitney (small but amazing collection), Brooklyn Museum (Assyrian and Egyptian collections, plus a great exhibit by Ghada Amer) MOMA (Starry Night in real life – way better than on a credit car/coffee mug/other abomination of Van Gogh’s masterpiece), and the Guggenheim(cars falling from the ceiling) are all fantastic. But favorite is the modern art wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I’m starting to appreciate artists that just use color to express themselves and the world around them.  In the confusion of the modern age, the wars, the technological transformation, our art reflects the ambiguity and the longing for simplicity. 

 Anyway, for those of you planning on visiting, be prepared to be dragged to atleast one of the above.

Forefront is Podcasting

While the title is pretty self-explanatory, I thought I’d let everyone out there know that Brian’s teaching is available on Itunes - for free. That’s right, we’re following Radiohead’s example, donations will be accepted :)   

We are currently doing a series on Sexuality and Spirituality and this last weeks, “Under the Chuppah,” was really good.