I
am sitting in my studio at the Loft Literary Center in downtown Minneapolis.
For the last several minutes, I have heard a banging outside. Rhythmic,
senseless. There’s a lot of construction
going on in this part of town, and I was writing an essay about nervous
breakdowns, so I didn’t pay much attention to it. The essay centers on a parishioner
in the Bronx named Anne who had a breakdown after her partner of a dozen years
died and my visits to her in the locked psychiatric ward of Jacobi Hospital. She and her partner had raised parakeets for
years, and she was worried about how they would fare while she was locked
up. Would they be there when she came
back? Would they welcome her? She was in her late 50’s at the time, and
felt like her whole life was on shaky ground; her whole reality was not secure.
But
then the rhythm varied, and I sought some sense of it. I looked out the window to see that the first
section of the Metrodome, directly across from my window has a big hole in
it. The pounding, banging noise was an
old fashioned wrecking ball tearing down this half-billion dollar beast not yet
40 years old. The Metrodome is obsolete;
a new billion dollar stadium will rise from its ashes—or from the dust of its
smashed concrete, to be precise. The way
the dome was constructed, it was not a candidate for implosion, our culture’s
favorite 4th of July method of bringing big things down.
I
could call to mind several obvious connections between the destruction of the
Metrodome’s world and the demolition of Anne’s moorings, the hinges of her
life. I could talk about how we always seem
to find money to build playgrounds for the rich and their fans (I’m one of
them) who pay to have them disappoint, while never finding enough money to
provide adequate health care for those who are not rich. I could talk about how the passes of the
wrecking ball remind me of passes by various Viking quarterbacks, including a
few that sure seemed to be ducks. Birds, wounded, like Anne’s parakeets. I could talk about how everything is fragile
and everything can be knocked down in our lives: our monuments, our minds, the people we love.
But
I think there may be some connections that are not so obvious, for why do I
keep going to the window to look while I am writing this. What are they?
There
is a bright winter sun today, and I cannot look long to the south to observe
the demolition. In my calling as a
pastor, I am witness—and sometimes guide—to people suffering various
demolitions. Thankfully, I am also
witness—and sometimes guide—to their resurrections. The Metrodome will not be resurrected, it
will be replaced. Anne was resurrected. That is why I trust that we humans will
outlive our machines and our monuments.
I hope that that is the beginning of wisdom.
Be
beauty. Be justice. Be hope for resurrection.
Patrick
