This February, the Alaskan Way Viaduct will be disassembled. Trucks and cranes will shake loose the concrete foundations before an earthquake has the pleasure, and I’m beginning to realize that I will never be able to leave Seattle the way I came.
When a man approached me in the mall food court and sheepishly asked if I had a few minutes to talk about Jesus, I reflexively smiled and said, “Oh, I’m already a Christian!” before realizing I wasn’t completely lying this time.
Thick, globby specks of white dotted the sky, like Impressionist brushstrokes viewed too close up.
He did not use grand showmanship or elaborate displays. He used simple, humble, everyday love.
“What if we had never met? had broken up in college? were still dating and living apart?” one of us will ask the other.
So Happy Birthday, Kendahl, and cheers to twenty-nine. This year is going to be the best one yet.
Seeing chipped stained glass and other signs of disrepair was dismaying, but it also renewed my appreciation of how church architecture brings grandeur into public space.
As a white person, it’s easy for me to assume that my way of viewing the world is normal. And not just normal, but best. That my way of talking is best. That my way of keeping time is best. That my way of doing church is best.
“I’m actually on a connecting flight, traveling to a corn hole tournament. It’s a pretty big deal,” the man in the seat behind me announced.
I love the city I now call home, but it’s never been my destination.
