Double Mystery

When someone asks me where I live, I am always startled by the answer I give: "I live in Manhattan." How odd. How strange that this home-schooled, conservative, dyed-in-the-wool New Englander should be living in New York City. How appropriate that this mystery is explained by two mysteries.

The idea of living in New York was even stranger to me a year ago. When I moved here for school last August, I was terrified. Sheer willpower kept me from vomiting as I drove down 34th Street toward my apartment building. After I moved in, it took me weeks to orient myself to north and south and to figure out which intersection was next to my building. Even as I settled in, I didn't enjoy New York--I felt I was working and studying in a place that was noisier, smellier, and more crowded than New Hampshire, with no added benefits. One Saturday found me crying because I knew I couldn't even take the elevator to another floor without seeing people. Why anyone would like the city was a mystery to me.

In the year (!) that I've been here, I've moved from hating the city to tolerating it to enjoying it. To my shock, while I was riding the bus to Boston a few weeks ago, I even caught myself thinking that I loved New York. The emotion was a bit premature-- I'm not sure I'm ready to commit that much yet. As the smart-aleck's t-shirt says, "I ♥ New York, but only as a friend." It remains to be seen where this relationship will go.

As my relationship with New York has grown, my interest in exploring the city has grown, too. I want to know its personality and to figure out what it is that makes it the living organism it is. I want to eat the food, see the sights, watch the people, and walk the streets that are so different from my beloved New Hampshire. As Agatha Christie wrote, New York truly is a detective story. I get to be Miss Marple.

As to the second mystery? I stayed in New York even when I hated it because I wanted to study at a school where I could explore the mystery of God made flesh and wrestle with the Incarnation's implications for culture. The King's College's new major--Media, Culture, and the Arts--provided me with that very opportunity and added the challenge of living out the faith in a sometimes hostile urban setting. By living in Manhattan, I was taking the opportunity to glorify God by searching out hidden things.

This is the double mystery story in which I live. I am playing detective in arguably the greatest city on earth, trying to learn what makes it tick, why people love it, and what it has to offer. I am also striving to search out what it means to know and live for the Word made flesh. I suspect that my efforts to find answer to both mysteries will overlap. I plan to use this blog to keep you posted to the clues I find along the way.