The New Haven saga unfolds

Good Lord! How has it been almost a month since I last updated? The ability of weeks to fly by without my noticing it is seriously freaking me out. Apologies to the faithful few who have not given up on this blog entirely due to its woeful lack of new content. I promise to try harder in the future.

As you may have guessed, life has been pretty insane since the last post, mostly in a good way, but a little insanity goes a long way. In big and important news, I now know where I'll be working in New Haven next year! I have accepted a position with St. Martin de Porres Academy, a charter school for grades 5-8 that works with very small classes (8-12 kids in a room!) of low-income, at-risk kids. I had a chance to visit both the school and the church where I'll be living a few weeks back, and am insanely excited about both. I went into my interview day at St. Martin's with a ton of reservations (most of them concerning my complete lack of qualifications to work in an academic setting), and was consistently won over by what I saw. I made my first impression of the place at breakfast (they provide 2 meals a day), when I was cordially greeted by a group of unbelievably polite 7th grade girls, who pulled up a chair for me at their table and invited me - a perfect stranger - to join them. Having spent quite a bit of time working with that particular adolescent demographic, and NEVER having experienced such pre-dawn politeness, I was rather blown away. For a group of kids that (I gather) comes from some  pretty rough backgrounds, I found them to be consistently polite, engaged, and motivated. It really made me believe in the value of education all over again. 

I spent the remainder of my day visiting classes, chatting with teachers (they draw on young, largely inexperienced Americorps talent, which is an interesting and provocative philosophy), and trying to get my interviewers to give me an actual job description. Details are still hazy, but I'm finally satisfied by the picture I got: long story short, I will be working in the administration, taking pressure off the overworked school president, and doing anything that needs to be done (because the school is so small, only 80-some students, everyone kind of does everything). But, the really cool bit, is that I'll be running graduate support programs - helping 8th graders (and their parents) apply to high schools, and helping recent graduates get access to tutoring and whatever other academic support they need. Needless to say, I'm nowhere near 100% sure of what I'll be doing, but I am quite positive that I will a) have lots of direct contact with people, and b) not be bored. And, really, that's all I care about. 

It was an interesting and, on the whole, positive experience to get a glimpse of what my life will look like next year (especially given that I came to New York knowing no one and nothing). I've now met most of our program leaders in person, seen my worksite, and visited my future home - a 2-story rectory with TONS of space (exactly how the bedrooms will be divided amongst the 8 of us is TBD), multiple bathrooms, and a gorgeous kitchen. Considering that I am currently working with 2 largely non-functioning electric burners and a toaster oven, the thought of a convection oven and a 6 burner gas stove makes me drool in anticipation. And: in house laundry facilities. Excited. 

On the whole, I loved New Haven. Which, considering that the almost universal reaction when I tell people where I'm going next year is one of horror, came as something of a surprise to me. Granted, my enthusiasm for the city can largely be chalked up to the simple reality that I'll be living in a nice part of it. I fully acknowledge that a large percentage of NH is not somewhere one generally wants to be. But the good parts? Are AMAZING. Yale = Oxford. The architecture is stunning, and there are tons and tons of church bells ringing all the time. Methinks I will be quite content with my new digs. 

It's a woefully incomplete update, but it will have to do for now, as real life is beckoning to me. Just thought I'd keep everyone posted on the major developments of my life at the very least, and hopefully some more reflective material will arrive on the blogosphere sometime in the near future.

My real life: exposed

It is high time that I made a public confession: the real reason my attitude toward New York has improved so dramatically is not, actually, because of the warmer weather, though that definitely helps. It will not surprise most of you in the least to discover that my rekindled love for this city springs from my love for my church. No, not the one I live in, that would be too simple. Instead of simply going downstairs to worship, I trek halfway across Manhattan to the church of St. Luke in the Fields - and believe me when I tell you that it is worth the trip. 

To put it briefly (because I've been known to ramble on endlessly about the virtues of this parish that has so graciously adopted me), St. Luke's has everything I ever wanted in a home church: transcendent liturgy, a professional choir (and a congregation that sings with more enthusiasm than any place I've ever been, I kid you not), absolutely top-notch preaching, a passion for social justice, a welcoming and unbelievably vibrant congregation, and a deep-seated commitment to full inclusiveness, in every sense of the word. Most notably, it is the only religious institution I have ever been in where sexuality is a total non-issue. 2/3 of the full-time clergy are partnered gays and lesbians, but I didn't discover that until my third visit - it's not that anyone is closeted; it's that the entire community has established such a degree of shared trust that discussing any one person's sexual orientation simply isn't relevant. St. Luke's isn't "the gay church;" it's a church with a lot of LGBT members. And a lot of straight ones too. For someone who hails from a place where homosexuality and the church don't quite know what to make of each other, that climate of full inclusion is completely mind-blowing. 

Needless to say, I've been hooked. Over the past few months, I've become more and more involved (leaving me less and less time for things like blogging, for which I do apologize) - with the 20s30s group, with one of the outreach programs (which merits a separate post), and with the team of acolytes. Equally needless to say, I'm particularly enthralled by acolyting - not only does it fulfill my long-unsatisfied desire to wear vestments, it's also been by far the best way of actually getting to know people in the parish. After only a few Sundays of parading around ceremoniously with a cross or a candlestick, I now know enough people that I cannot extricate myself from coffee hour conversations in fewer than 45 minutes (and that's if I'm lucky). Believe me when I say it's amazing. I love my roommates, but I've been craving interactions with people with whom I don't share a bathroom, and it's been wonderful to get to know some real New Yorkers who - believe it or not - rival me in my passion for church. 

In all those ramblings, I forgot to mention one other amazing thing that St. Luke's has: a bell. Like, a real bell. In a real tower. Rung by real people. Those of you who followed aixpeditions will no doubt remember that the one surefire way to my heart is by leading me to pealing church bells. Turns out the even surerfire way to my heart is to let me ring the bells, which I got to do during the Easter Vigil last night - thereby checking off one of the key items on my "Things to do before I die" list. It was seriously one of the most amazing experiences of my life. You know that scene right after the wedding in The Sound of Music, where there's a short clip of a bell-ringer, flying up and down as he holds on to the end of the rope for dear life? That was what it was like. Only this bell was so big, it took two of us (both wearing cassock and surplices, which is hardly ideal bell-ringing attire) to ring it - meaning that we continually crashed into each other in midair for the full ten minutes we were at it. Ringing bells is hard work. I'd call it a cross between jumping up and down while holding a hugely heavy barbell and doing pull-ups. If there is a muscle in my body that isn't sore from that undertaking, I have yet to find it. 

But it was SO worth it. I honestly thought I was going to die of joy when I was told I could have the privilege of ringing the bell (after I had begged them to let me do it and convinced a quorum of bicep-measuring acolytes that I was buff enough). I thought I was going to die of joy again as I soared through the air while ringing out the Easter Alleluia. I'm pretty amazed I'm still alive :)

I know I don't blog for a particularly churchy audience, and I've intentionally kept my content pretty secular. But given what a huge part of my life St. Luke's has become, I feel like I'm giving you a woefully inadequate picture of what my life in New York is like if I don't write about it at least once. So: welcome to my real life! And a very happy Easter to you all!