A Day in Raleigh, North Caorlina

An ordinary day.

I woke up at 6:48.
I was so tired.
I wake up every morning to meet the kids at McDonald's for breakfast and chatter.
This morning I was particularly tired. I am trying to coordinate a ski trip at church and
this effort is time and energy consuming.
My wife of three years and I live in a one story house, a ranch house.
We live in North Raleigh, about ten minutes from downtown Raleigh.
We are within one mile of Food Lion, Taco Bell, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
I walk there sometimes just to get a change of scenery.
Because of the layout of this city we are more dependent on our cars.
I have to drive 5 miles to work.
I go to a place called Madonna House every year.
The house is in Southern Raleigh. It takes 30 minutes to get there from our house.
It is large city. The population is not dense. It is a typical American city with its suburban sprawl.
But this is nothing the average citizen of this city really thinks about.
We really do not have to think about it.
I even think about my life with Anna, and I realize how often we go shopping at this mall, that mall, or eat at this restaurant.
It is almost like we have come to expect these luxuries.
Luxuries.
Luxuries, everywhere.
The homeless think about it though. I worked with them for a year, getting to befriend many of them. They gave me a deep insight into the human condition.
One day I said to a guy named Rodney, "Yeah, I just go back from exercising at the Y."
He said, "Dude, I exercise every day by just walking around on my feet."
Rodney also said to me, the first time I met him, "Chaplain Peter, you know that you are going
to see Jesus around here."

One of the things that the homeless complain about is a poor transportation system.
The city is so spread out.
It makes it hard to get around. The bus system is very slow.
But if you are upper middle class like myself, you can easily resign yourself to a nice home, a nice commute, and nice grocery stores around you.
But I am not often confronted by the realities of my difference from the average world citizen.
I am secluded in my little North Raleigh Community.
There is really no reason to feel quilty about it, but sometimes I get mad about the injustice.
Today though, the weather is turning my thoughts from brown to bright.
I do not need to think about all the injustices and crazy things about the world we live in.
But they will come back.
These thoughts linger.
I think they linger because we live in a world created by a Being that is Just, Right, and Kind.
As I look around me and see the mass cruilties, AIDS in Africa, and Racism in Raleigh, I long for a place where justice will roll down like a stream. When oh Lord will this happen?
But today the sun is so fragrant in the garden that all my worries leave me.
There is something about a garden, a nice patch of sun, and a set of eyes to see it all.
It is magic to sit in a garden.
To get back to my story, I woke up alone this morning.
My wife was already with our baby.
Our baby has been with us for 4 months.
If you leave Josie alone for a few minutes, she can roll over and hit her head on something.
There have been a few times when I have almost dropped the little girl.
That has scarred the crap out of me.
I am surpised I have not dropped her yet.
We have to keep a close watch on her.
She is a traveller.
She likes to roll over and work her way out from her play mat.
It is beautiful to be in the midst of a creature that is 100% dependent.
What a joy to be needed.
Wow.
What if Anna and I simply left the house on a vacation?
We could leave her.
She would, in a matter of hours, surely die.
It is so refreshing to get a glimpse of utter dependency.
Josie needs us so much.
It is a good feeling to be needed.
I guess that is how god feels.
The trouble is that we are blind to our dependence when we get past the age of 10.
Well when you are about to die, having chest pains, feeling out of control in your car on the way to a telephone pole, talk to me then.
Haven't you felt dependent before.
Dependency has changed over my lifetime.
I remember when my dad had to tie my ties.
That felt dependent.
I remember wondering how my parents knew how to get the beach.
I felt dependent on their knowledge of directions.
But as I approached my late 20's I was jolted into remembering my beautiful dependence.
In fact, it happened when I married Anna.
I worked to deny that reality for a little while, but I then realized I had to give in to it.
A baby makes marriage and all its change seem like a joke.
Anna and I have been working on our land lately, trimming shrubs, cutting our monkey grass, and attempting to make our front and back yards have some semblance of beauty about them.
My wife and have a similar passion. I think the passion is to make things beautiful around us.
What gives us that desire I often wonder.
When I met Anna the first thing that stuck out to me was that she is an artist.
She does wonderful oil paintings. She did a painting of an African Door in beautiful blue and green and purple strands of color.
I fell in love with that painting, and now, I am in love with the girl that produced that beauty.
Anna and I have many similar passions.
That is the glory of marriage, it allows you to spend time with another person who
has similar interests.
Are top interests are
Travelling
Sports
Music
Confronting people with their utter stupidity, clumsiness, and want, in the face of Almighty God.

I like making things beautiful.
I like making a beautiful melody.


I rolled to the bathtub and stretched my long body over the porcelain tub.
I had to get to breakfast by 7:20, so I nixed the shower and went for the high school shower.
I call it a high school shower because I always would shower this way in high school.
You can dress up all the way to your top, shoes and all, drench your hair with water, throw on a little Pert Plus, rinse, and in 45 seconds you are a new man. That is what I did this morning.
I got to McDonald's at 7:30.
I meet High School students at McDonald's every Wednesday to talk about Physics, Basketball, McGriddles, and prayer.
I am the Youth Minister at St. Michael's Episcopal Church.
www.holymichael.org/youth
The church was a mission church from the downtown church of Christ Church in the 50's.
There are at least 700 people that attend services every weekend.
We have four services.
8:00- Very Formal
9:30-Still Formal
5:00-Monastic
7:00-Contemporary Youth Driven

My office window sits overlooking the parking lot here at St. Michael's.
I have the treat of watching all the little kiddies stroll into school.
Four and Five year olds stroll in and look back wantingly for their mothers.
Sometimes the "housekeeper" or "maid" drops the kids off.
There is less connection when they drop them off. I wonder why.
Maybe it is because these paid workers are not quite like having your own flesh and blood.
But I can understant the struggle for parents.

As I left my little girl on the floor today, as she made kewing noises and grunts, I was so
internally torn.
I hate leaving her every day.
Work.
I must go to work.
My love for Josie is so deep and uncontrollable.
When I left her I almost wept.
I cannot explain it.
It seemed so unjust that I would have to leave her.
I was so jealous of my wife.
I think my wife is often jealous of me though.
She doesn't get the freedom that I do to leave the house.

Now I am at work listening to David Gray and typing.
Life is great.
God is great.
Writing has taken me from brown to bright.
Come back again and we can chat some time.