I'm an Inquirer!

Last week I went home to Nebraska to attend a Presbytery meeting. For those of you who aren't Presbyterians, Presbyteries are groupings of congregations which decide things on a larger scale than by individual churches. I'm part of Homestead Presbytery, which includes most of Nebraska. For people considering ordination, your home presbytery is who approves you, supports you along the discernment and education process, and may someday ordain you. During the long path from "hey, I think I might want to work in the church" to ordination, a person is considered to be "under care" of their presbytery. I'm applying to seminaries this fall and certain enough about being called to ordination that I felt comfortable telling my pastor and quite a few committees, so I applied to become an Inquirer. Inquirer is the first step along official approval for ordination, which made me pretty nervous about showing up at the Presbytery meeting for approval.

Unsurprisingly, church officials are pretty friendly and supportive when you go before them to declare your interest in ordained ministry. I was terrified to be presented at the Presbytery meeting. Thankfully, being approved as an Inquirer is more of a gesture of good faith than a test of theological knowledge. My parents and many other people from my home church were present, and it felt wonderful to have them there. The Presbytery approved me as an Inquirer, so I'm one step closer to ordination. The next part of my path is seminary, so I've got plenty to work for.

Neighborhoods: North Lawndale

I just have to point out that there is no South Lawndale. There probably was one at some point, but right now there is only a North Lawndale in Chicago, which is on the south side of Chicago. This might also be a good time to mention that Chicago has three sides: North, South, and West (the East side is the lake). Although the north/south binary pops up pretty often, North Lawndale is technically more of an East Side neighborhood than anything else. The division between South, East, and North can be a bit confusing, much like the delineations between neighborhoods themselves.

North Lawndale is directly south of us. It's divided from East Garfield Park by I-290, the Expressway I travel next to every day on the Blue Line. Without 290 to separate the neighborhoods, a casual observer would have problems differentiating between it and East Garfield Park. However, for us the division is pretty simple -- Lawndale is where you go to do laundry, or eat out without getting on a train. Lawndale has been the center of what is officially termed Asset-Based Development, and what locals call the Lawndale Miracle. Simply put, the biggest asset Lawndale has is its people, many of whom do not have steady jobs but certainly have time and willpower. The Lawndale Community Church recognized that most of its congregation was in need of basic neighborhood amenities like affordable housing, medical care, and places to eat and socialize. The church also recognized that the people of Lawndale were more than capable of starting these projects for themselves, provided that they could secure funding. Through generous donations from other churches, businesses, and individuals, Lawndale Community Church has ushered in a pizza place, clinic, and a gym which we'll probably join after the holidays. The church defines the community in ways which aren't immediately noticeable from an outsider's perspective, but are present throughout the neighborhood.

For me, the most pertinent fact about Lawndale is not its strength of community, but its conveniently-close laundromat. Today, for the first time, I went to do my laundry by myself. Although we've been doing laundry at the same laundromat for three months, I asked my roommates for directions several times before I left the house. As anybody who's lived with me can tell you, I have serious problems with directions. My current roommates have charitably decided that the problem only occurs when sitting in a vehicle, as if I could walk to Lawndale without calling for directions. I'm unclear as to whether they believe that I have problems only in cars or also in public transport, but it doesn't really matter. Regardless of where I am and how I'm going someplace, I have directional issues. The laundromat is on two well-known streets, and requires three turns to get there. Despite this fact, I managed to get turned around leaving the laundromat's parking lot. I've learned a lot about navigating Chicago in these past three months, probably more than I learned in four years of undergrad. Still, baby steps. Maybe by the end of the year I can do laundry without having to ask for help before I leave.

Neighborhoods: Grant Park

The weather here has been absolutely fabulous lately, so last week I took time after work to just wander. I figured that it'd be a nice time of year to wander around Grant Park. Grant Park is cozied up right next to Millennium Park, to the point where I have problems figuring out where one ends and the other begins. To get to Grant Park, you just keep walking past Millennium Park and stop before you hit the lake.

Grant Park hosts plenty of concerts, as well as plenty of people walking dogs and kids playing tag. It's probably the most famous for hosting Obama's acceptance speech on Election Night, 2008. I was studying abroad in London at the time (yes, clearly the silliest time to leave Chicago), but friends from college biked down to Grant Park to celebrate. They described thousands of people crowded into an area with huge screens and a stage. I know all this happened, but have problems figuring out just where in Grant Park the speech occurred. There are a lot of little clearings around here, but nothing that looks as if it could contain all the masses of people that were present.

Grant Park is a slightly hilarious area to me. It's a

green space surrounded by busy streets and skyscrapers. I walked through a little grove of trees, which felt absolutely surreal until I realized that the trees had been planted in a perfect grid. Somehow that made me feel better -- even though this park is full of nature, it is precisely ordered. It's still very much a part of Chicago's downtown area.

I walked over to the Petrillo Band Shell, which hosts concerts during the summer. Right now the shell looks desolate, nothing but an expanse of dead flowerbeds and concrete. You're all going to have to take my word that during the summer this place is packed, lively, and generally much more interesting. In the fall, the shell is just part of the grey of downtown Chicago, with only a fringe of trees to break up the monotony.

Things get a lot more beautiful right near the shell, where there's a rose garden complete with sculpted shrubberies and trellis arches. I probably went there on one of the last days to see the roses before things get pruned down for winter, and I'm very glad I did so; it was absolutely beautiful. I grew up near a huge park in Lincoln with a rose garden, so walking among the roses here in Chicago felt a bit like home. It's also pretty fantastic to see all the different colors of roses near the grey of buildings.

Life in Faith House

I talk about my roommates as if people reading this blog are familiar with my living situation, but it occurs to me that you probably don't. So here's a quick run-down of who my roommates are and where they work:

First off, Steph is the only roommate I actually share a room with - we have bunkbeds, which makes my inner five year old very happy. Everybody else has their own room, since we are six people in a five-person house. Steph is from Kentucky, and works at a soup kitchen and clinic in a church in Kenwood (a southside neighborhood). We watch a lot of Bones together, and she is one of the fastest knitters I know. Steph is also technically not a Young Adult Volunteer - since she's not Presbyterian, she applied to our program through DOOR instead. The biggest practical difference between being DOOR/YAV like the rest of us and only DOOR like Steph is that she didn't go to orientation before showing up to Chicago.

Tad is from Texas, and works at Lakeview Presbyterian Church (in Boystown, which is part of Lakeview). Tad loves musicals and country music, so we get along very well except on football days, when we insult each other's teams mercilessly.

Mara is from Minnesota, and doing her second year of YAV service. Last year she was a YAV in Kenya. This year she works at the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, which is based out of the Loop. She loves cheesy movies, which results in a lot of viewings of terrible '90s films.

Brian is from Pennsylvania, and works at a peer mentoring agency right here in Garfield Park. He is a huge Batman fan, which is why he lives in the room with huge Batman wall-clings (yes, we have such a room. This house is awesome). We talk about comics a lot.

Potts is technically Nathaniel, but we call him by his last name instead of his first. Potts is from Maryland, and works at an adult daycare center in Englewood (in the southside). He is also a comic-book fan, which definitely ups the house nerd quotient. Potts is a great cook -- so far his macaroni and cheese is my favorite, but he also makes a mean lasagna.

I hope this helps to clear up any confusion about where I'm living and who I'm living with. Part of this year is that we all live in "intentional Christian community", so my roommates are important for plenty of reasons beyond simply being near them. Living in intentional community means that we all have agreed to be there for each other and be supportive of each other during our year of service. The goal is to have bonds between each other that are strong enough where we can feel comfortable talking about a hard day at work, or asking theological questions, without being nervous. Crafting that kind of rapport between people who are still getting to know each other can be difficult, but obviously living together helps. We also have community days every few weeks where Krista lets us pick out a bonding activity, like playing mini-golf earlier today.

As far as house practicalities go, we share one house budget for groceries and toiletries, and also share cleaning duties. We try to eat dinner together each night as a group, but in reality this almost never happens, as people have work/Bible studies/concerts/visitors instead. However, dinner each night with whoever is at home is a fun time to share things from our days and laugh around the dinner table. Each of us cooks one night a week, which leads to a decent amount of variety. On a related note, if anybody has any vegetarian recipes for six, I'd love to have them.

Crisis Line

Tonight was my first shift serving on the Crisis Line for Sarah's Inn. Our Crisis Line is 24 hours and staffed by volunteers (with staff constantly on-call). The line is for anybody experiencing domestic abuse, anybody who has experienced domestic abuse, or for people who need more information for others about available resources. As Volunteer Coordinator, I've been scheduling Crisis Line shifts for three months now, but I haven't been qualified to work it myself until after training.
I was terrified to put myself on the schedule, even for a relatively short weekend shift. Obviously I'm not going to go into any detail about any of the calls (ever), but I'm very glad to have worked my first shift. As somebody who works specifically with volunteers I spend most of my time at Sarah's Inn emailing people and making charts, not interacting with clients. Being available to talk with people who could use some support, and having the training and resources to help them find useful services, is worth being nervous. And even though my shift's been done for hours, I still feel a bit nervous. My boss assures me that it'll get easier over time, but right now I'm just looking forward to feeling a bit less worried during my next shift.

Neighborhoods: Millennium Park

Okay, in the spirit of honesty I have to admit that working off of Chicago's official tourism website to find neighborhoods is way too touristy to be accurate. Millennium Park is definitely not a neighborhood. But it is fun to talk about and visit, so I suppose that's fine.

Millennium Park has been in Chicago longer than I have, so sometimes I forget what a strange concept it was a decade ago. The legend goes that Mayor Daley looked out his window during a meeting and was embarrassed that there was a barren stretch of dirt in the heart of Chicago, uglying up the place. He called up enough millionaires (and invested the taxpayers), and in 2004 Millennium Park was completed. The park's existence can be seen as proof that Mayor Daley has the kind of political and financial power to do essentially whatever he wants. Then again, it's also a center of both tourist photo-ops and free concerts, a green space surrounded by office buildings.

Despite being completed four years late, I think the park has proven itself as a worthwhile venture by now. During the summer, there are free concerts during the noon hour, and people in power suits sneak down with their sack lunches to sit on the grass and relax. Although it's getting too cold for concerts now, my roommate Tad and I were lucky enough to be in Millennium Park for the Chicago Music Festival about a month ago. The shows were fantastic, and also a wake-up call -- in Lincoln, more people would have come to a country concert, but no stars that big would have bothered to put on a show in such a small town.

I understand that a lot of people consider The Bean to be the best thing in Millennium Park. The Bean is indeed awesome (no, that's not its real name, but trust me, nobody calls it Cloud Gate), and it's fun to have a giant approachable mirrored statue reflecting skyscrapers and distorting tourists. But my favorite part of Millennium Park is by far Pritzker Pavillion, which was built as a concert venue.

The grassy expanse is big enough that small soccer games break out on its edges in the summer, and there's plenty of room for concert-goers. There's a stage surrounded by metal curling out into the skyline, which reflects the stage lights and makes the place glow at night. There's also a system of criss-crossing poles over the top of the park, laden with speakers and lights. It might seem strange to cover a grassy field with all this metal, but it feels comforting to me. The speaker system cradles the field, blending together the city proper and that little oasis of music. It's probably just because I'm into theatre tech, but looking up through the grid and into the stars is one of the best things to do on a summer night.

Neighborhoods: Little Italy/UIC

I'm starting to worry about how Chicago's tourism site has decided to differentiate between neighborhoods. Little Italy/UIC is definitely one neighborhood, so I can't complain about that. However, it looks like I'm going to have an entire post on the United Center directly above it, which doesn't personally sound all that interesting.

Little Italy has been a distinctive neighborhood (and a fantastic place to go out for dinner) for decades. There are lots of ethnically centered neighborhoods in Chicago, like Chinatown or Greektown. Some of these are extremely concentrated, whereas others have become more generic. Little Italy is still a great place to get Italian ice, but much of the neighborhood's identity is also formed by the University of Illinois at Chicago. UIC has been around for over a hundred years, but the campus only consolidated itself inside of Little Italy within the past few decades. Little Italy has become a neighborhood with enclaves within it, like UIC and the Illinois Medical District. Illinois Medical District is crammed full of hospitals, like Rush. I've been assured that ER was based on Rush, although as a non-ER fan that doesn't mean much. The picture above is of a new hospital being built, which I see from the train on the way to work.

One of the awesome places on UIC's campus is Hull House. Hull House is now a museum devoted to Jane Addams, who started up a wave of social justice work through settlement housing right here in Chicago. As somebody who's looking into social work as a career, it's pretty awesome having that kind of legacy in the city.

UIC is also where I went to register and vote in Illinois a few weeks ago. This is my fifth year effectively living in Chicago, but I've never bothered to change my voter registration. When I realized that I knew way more about Quinn than I did about any of Nebraska's candidates, I figured it was time to make the switch. I suppose this is also a sign that I may not be leaving Chicago at the end of the year - it'd be a pity to elect a governor and mayor and then not be around to see what happens.