God of All.

Greetings!  I am just back from New York . . . celebrating a soon-to-be milestone birthday, hence the reason for the delay in this briefing!

Come, go with me, to this past Saturday morning--

Climbing aboard the double-decker sightseeing bus affirmed my status as a New York City tourist.   (Actually, I am still processing the historical and artistic beauty of it all.)  My knowledgeable guide, Charles, highlighted buildings, landmarks and monuments that impressed me deeply, while I snapped photos, took notes and followed our course on a map of uptown Manhattan. 

Driving along Central Park West was simply a delight.  It was a beautiful fall morning with a stiff breeze skipping wispy clouds across the sky, as Charles provided a narrative on the buildings and people who had made the area home.  One notable building was the Dakota, a co-op apartment building constructed in 1880 . . . also notable because it is the place where Beatle John Lennon tragically died.  ‘Contrasts,’ I thought.   Beauty and death. The Dakota: http://www.thecityreview.com/uws/cpw/dakota.html

New York City is full of beautiful old churches that hearken back to a time in our country when glorifying God was a good deal more important than it is today.  The excellence in architecture, artistry, and craftsmanship are unspoken testament of that. After we passed the Dakota, we came upon the magnificent St. John the Divine Cathedral.  It has been under constant construction since 1892.  Because New York was such a melting pot of immigrants in the last several decades of the 19^th century, the cathedral’s builders were committed to the notion that she be “a house of prayer for all nations”—the commitment stands, along with her beauty.  The front of the church has magnificent carvings of our early church fathers, the saints,  and yet boasts stone columns with the Twin Towers and Empire State Buildings recently memorialized.  The expansive magnificent cathedral, the grounds, the towering old trees—all spoke of another time—one I wished I could go back and visit. http://www.nyc architecture.com/HAR/HAR002.htm

I suppose you could say I was 'all eyeballs’ as we passed prestigious Columbia University, founded in 1754, (America’s sixth oldest university). She fills city blocks with her classrooms, medical school, auditoriums, dormitories and chapel . . . chapel?  Yes, well St. Paul’s Chapel, dedicated “forever to be and remain a house set apart and dedicated to service of Almighty God,” has a glorious presence on the campus and enjoys designation as an official historic landmark in the Morningside Heights neighborhood. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/earl/chapel.html

Have you heard of the “God Box”?  It is an interfaith center, not far from Columbia University and Grant’s Tomb, (which is the largest tomb in North America).  For many years, the Interchurch Center was a highly respected place, which some even dubbed the ‘Protestant Vatican’ . . . so much so, that President Eisenhower flew in to lay as the cornerstone a piece of rock from the marketplace of ancient Corinth, where St. Paul once preached. (Yes, our St. Paul—who wrote to the churches of Corinth and Rome, “Romans”, which we are now reading!)  However, due to the decline in the National Council of Churches, the once Protestant, and certainly, unapologetically Christian, enclave of denominations has become interfaith—Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and more, what someone called an “almost perfect microcosm of God’s world”.  (To which I say, ‘well then, if it is perfect, why did God send his Son into the world to die—if all roads lead home?’  I’m sorry, all faiths are not the same, nor do all roads lead home.)

We spied the famous Riverside Church…

       … Barnard College (for women)

               … the Jewish Theological Seminary (academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism worldwide)

                     … and then Harlem, home of more than 400 churches! In fact, “Charles” told us than on Sundays, double-parking is accepted, and no cops are ticketing or towing cars—folks are dressed up, and at church.  The legendary Apollo Theater was on the left as we pulled down W. 125^th Street, (just about to make the right hand turn at the north side of Central Park.)  Folks like Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, and even Michael Jackson got their start at the Apollo.  Harlem has made an incredible change for the good in the last 20 years—cleaned up and safe, compared to its being a hot-bed of crime and political unrest.  Yet it continues to be alive with racial activism, particularly for African Americans.

Turning right on to 5^th Avenue, there was Museum Mile, though there was no time to stop on this day! It was a most interesting day—seeing the beauty of the sweeping old trees and native foliage, appreciating the artistry and craftsmanship of my fellow human beings . . . noting the tomb of General Ulysses S. Grant and the death place of John Lennon. 

I thought of those who had honored God through their lives…through the work of their hands, and the personal philosophies they espoused.  On the other hand, John Lennon had said, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink... We're more popular than Jesus now—I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity."  ‘Really, John?  What say you now?’ I have nothing whatever against the rock and roller . . . but I mean “Really, what in this life has lasting power??”  What in this life is eternal beside Jesus Christ, my friends?’  Nothing. 

Some give thanks; some recognize him as God. Either way, he still is . . . God, the Almighty.  Do you give God his rightful place?

Christine