Beginning to become real

9/10

Replacing the lights

David S is in working on getting electrical issues straightened out.

Anna drops in for conversation, as always, on many topics. 

RL has his crew ready to replace all the burned out lights under the scaffolding and rescuing us from the clutches of the Department of Buildings. And today my son Dan is with them.

Stephen is in to review our success with presbytery and to work  strategy for what happens next.

Mim comes in to take me to dinner to the B and to prepare for the Center Board meeting. She has been so faithful for so long. Finally, light is appearing.

The Center Board gathers. It’s been a long time. It was impossible for the Center to figure out what its role could be until we as a church had a sense of what we were going to do. We are happy to share with them our success with Presbytery and the lease now in negotiation that could bring our long longed for stability. The role of the center begins to emerge. To be a 501c3 to enable us to get the grants we would be ineligible for as a church. To provide the structure by which the community could finally engage and take responsibility for our landmarked exterior. As we have been declared a significant piece of our community’s cultural heritage, then those who sought that designation need to step up. And to create the kind of interfaith broad based programming we have always intended to create. That possibility stands now within reach. Katherine comments that there’s a brightness in my spirit she hasn’t heard for awhile. John H looks at Angelo’s art lining the walls, it’s like the dream you  had years ago, he says, it’s beginning to become real.

Marsha and Danielle and I stay after to talk church strategy. It’s primary election day. I’ve got political commitments to attend to. 

When I return, 86th street is closed off. Big machines are moving. Klieg lights blaring bright. Men  will work all night long, laying fresh, hot asphalt on the street. Tomorrow morning traffic will be flowing, filling the street. No one will notice they were here. 

Late night street work