I resigned from my leadership duties at church this last week. I was helping with the student leadership team, assisting with the youth leadership, and putting what I could into the youth worship band. There were some other minor things, but that was the bulk.

Tonight I shared my decision to quit with the youth band. It was more emotional for me than I had imagined. Made worse by the fact that tonight went fairly well. They are a good group of kids and I like being able to share with them what I know. Playing in a band is a wonderful experience.

What suprised me was that when I shared this with my pastor, he replied that he had planned to recommend my pulling back for a space. I had thought I was a bit more under the radar with my stress. (During this same time, Sandra shared with me that the dark bags under my eyes weren't there two years ago. Ugh.)

Nevertheless, last week was already an improvement. The potential for crushing pressure is still there, but so it the possibility of reprieve; and unlike the environment of so many high stress jobs, I do trust the people I work for and with.

I have had strong feelings of violence, the urge to swear, and a desire for alcohol.

Brave, new world that has such me in it.

The nemesis of my mental health is the insoluble problem. I have always dwelt close to the notion that every problem is solvable. However, ever problem is not solvable. Death, for instance.

My work situation has placed me in a scenario (er, scenarios) where I cannot win and and I cannot run. I must stand and take it. In the face.
Today I was told by one of clients, when I began to protest that I did not know what he wanted from me, he said "I know it's not your problem, eh, I mean, your fault." You see it is my problem.

By the end of each day, I achieve a sort of euphoric insensibility; it's a self defense mechanism. The positive spin is that the storm preceding my cranial abdication, usually around dinner time, produces an awareness of self control that is usually wanting. I become so catious of my anger that my actions are closely guarded.

I don't know where all this is going. There is no immediate/short/medium term solution. Work is going to be stressful and I must simply watch as my emotional and mental entrails are strung out. I must pray, and act, and survive. There will be an end and I must reach it.

May God be glorified.

I am now back in Tallahassee. The last two days were a flash. I was working at Court Square, in Long Island City (which I believe is in Queens). I was cloistered in the heart of the tower, hidden away from the vanished sun on the 21st floor; surrounded by the relentless sound of heatsinks and harddrives. Ah, the bliss of the field tech!

Last night was my final night in NYC, and I had yet to purchase the "I ♥ NY" tee requested by Sandra. I had hoped to finish work early, and catch Gary and Sharon before they started teaching at 6pm. At 5:40, I was in the elevator, heading to the subway, and I knew I was on my own for the next few hours.

The weather was miserable; cold, wet, and windy. I was ill equipped for it, but determined to find that souvenir shirt as well as seeing bit more of the city. I took the train to 53rd street and hit the Barnes & Noble (I needed a thank you gift for the Alley).

There are a lot of people in NYC. Everywhere you go there are people. A lot of people.

At the corner of Lexington and E 54th Street, I stood in a small sea of umbrellas, like faerie tale toadstools, and waited for the walk signal (although signals mean very little in NYC). We crossed in unison, and I discovered the delicate art of weaving my umbrella through those coming the opposite way. On the streets, broken and discarded umbrellas abounded. I especially noticed that in Long Island City.

I decided to walk south along Park Ave, with the ultimate goal of Grand Central Station. The avenue was the cleanest road I had yet found, but sterile. Banks, banks, and banks. Excepting the Ferrari dealer and St. Bart's.

Grand Central Station lived up to it's name. I felt like Harry entering Hogwart's for the first time. The great hall luminescent with the images of constellations, gleaming marble staircases, vast spaces, teeming with people and trains. I edged against the wall and stood. This is where it felt like NYC; the way I had imagined it: large and glorious.

I took the #6 south to Chambers and then transferred to the J train. Back in Brooklyn, heading to the Alley's apartment, the contrast was astounding. From glory to degradation, from marble to cement, from gleam to grime. Somehow it is all part of the city.

"It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, "Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe", or "Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet." They cannot announce the hapiness of of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that not not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complete picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority."

G. K. Chesterton
The Ball and The Cross, Chp. IV

I rode the train across the Williamsburg Bridge and into lower Manhattan. I got off at Chambers and walked down Broadway to Battery Park. It was misty like yesterday, but it was not bitter. Sunshine was leaking through the clouds.
I paid my $11.50 fair to ride the ferry out to Liberty and Ellis Island. My fellow passengers consisted of a couple of hundred people. The majority of which did not speak English as first language. We were herded (yes, like cattle) into the security check area, and then funneled into the ferry. I tried to be deliberate with my empathy, and imagine myself as an immigrant being shuffled along, so crowded and uncertain.
I felt so much poetry being in New York harbor; the Manhattan skyline looming in lowering clouds. I was so excited that I called my father just to tell him where I was.
Our boat circled Liberty Island, providing a majestic view of Lady Liberty. The ferry patrons moved to the island side and the craft tilted noticeably. Being so close to the statue affect me, and felt little waves of patriotisms, and hope, and longing for a new world wash against me, just like the little waves washing against the island.
I had a pang of disgust during when watching documentary at the Information Center, when the statute was represented as a goddess and the tinge of pagan ideals pushed back the affection that was building in me for this great icon of our nation.
I wasn’t able to enter the statue due to late notice, so after wandered Liberty Island I boarded the ferry again for Ellis.
If Lady Liberty invokes a sense of the divine, Ellis brings emphasizes the humanity. The facility is restored to early 20th century condition. The story told there is about the perseverance, hopes, and sometime disappointments of the world’s peasantry that came to be so much strength in our nation. I had the Pierce Pettis/David Wilcox song in my head:

“We are children of slavery,
children of immigrants,
Remnants of tribes
and their tired refugees…”

After Ellis Island, I walked to the site of the World Trade Center. It is simple to describe the physical features of the site: it is a hole in the ground. However, I find it harder to describe what it really is. It is a hole in the city. I stared at the hole; I read some names of those who died there. As I walked the surrounding streets, so full of people and life, I recalled the clouds of debris, rolling through those same streets. A little bit afterwards, I ended up in St. Paul’s, just across the street. It’s the church where George Washington went to prayer after his inauguration. The sanctuary is open, and adorned with memories of 9.11. I sat there and I read some Psalms and tried to appreciate the fear, horror, and grief that had surrounded this place a few years earlier.

I left Tallahassee on a jet plane to NYC yesterday. When I arrived at the airport, I took the A train all the way to 59th Street, switched trains and headed up to 110th and Broadway. Gary and Sharon Alley where waiting for me at Starbucks.
We strolled through Central Park, three analysts of the human spiritual condition, and I hardly took in the Park due to my travel excitement and enthusiasm to talk.
The city was under a terror threat, but the subway was still packed. I could not imagine it having more people. We headed over to Times Square and then to edge of China Town where we ate at the Excellent Dumpling House. Very nice.
I'll be heading over to Ellis Island in a few minutes. The weather is misty and grey, but I feel that adds to wonder of Ellis Island somehow. I'll plan to head to the World Trade Center after that to pause and reflect.

A few oddities to freak all of you out. Yes, I'm just a morbid
mystic. I try to keep it under wraps, but it's get difficult with
all of these pregnancy hormones having their way with me.
A gerbera daisy that a friend of mine gave me when I had the
miscarriage in March is blooming again here in October. The baby
would have been born in October. Likewise, the tree that
Christopher and I planted out front has been blooming as well. We
were worried about the tree a few weeks ago as it had lost all of
it's leaves and was looking pretty pathetic. The bare limbs started
to get little buds on them and behold, flowers, and along with them
a set of new electric green leaves.

I also read an article in this month's National Geographic (well,
actually, I read the picture caption and skipped to the article on
the Afar people) about how a baby albatross died of starvation with
a full stomach. How is that possible? His parents had been feeding
him discarded lighters and random pieces of plastic that collect in
the eddys where food usually is found. I was struck by the
parallel: kids today being starved, but their "stomachs" are full.
They have everything they "need," but are emotionally and
spiritually starved. Ah...what do I know?

On a less "the world is dead and dying" note, Christopher got to
feel the baby kick last night. It was just a little poke, but it
was the first time and well, this guy seems to take after Adah's
not-so-gentle prodding, so I was glad to share the experience.
Strong is good, though.