New York

I'm in New York. Have been here since Sunday. More to come soon.

Let's start again...

I've never been good at this blogging thing so let's start again. Tomorrow evening Kathleen and I will be flying out to San Diego for a few days of warmth and relaxtion. We'll be visitng my dad and it will be the first time they're going to meet. It should be a good time. Saturday we're planning on surfing, and something during this trip we have to get in and out burger. oh so good.

flickr

IMG_4243
Originally uploaded by nathan_clancy.

So I was just online, and I thought I would check out flickr. And yep it's pretty much amazing. It makes it easy to blog picutres on it. So this is kind of a test. Amazing. The picture by the way was taken in Amsterdam in Janurary when I was there. I love the building there.

FDNY

I'm currently in Crete IL, visiting my family after my brothers wedding. I return to Minneapolis after over two months this saturday. Since not much is going on here in peaceful relaxing boring Crete IL, I will recall a funny/interesting new york experience:

The Sunday night before I left New York, I was returning from a walk around the Village, back to the church, were I found Jesse sitting on our front step reading and observing what was going on right in front of him. So I sat down next to him eating some local bakery snacks I just purchased down the street. Right in front of our building and us, was a huge FDNY fire truck parked half on the sidewalk half on the street. And in between us and that fire truck were 5 FDNY firefighters hanging out and flirting with three very attractive Austrailian girls, tourists. As they were talking to each other, I noticed just to my right no more then 5 feet away three french people in french talking about soccer. Now I dont speak french or understand it so how do I know that they we're talking about soccer. I know because this whole expeirence happenrd just a few hours after Italy defeated France in the World Cup Finals. What else would three French people be disussing then how France should have won the World Cup! Eventually the French people went away because next time I looked, they were gone. Meanwhile, the flirting reached a new level where the some of the aussie girls were talking pictures with the "manly" new york firefighters. One firefighter was particular flirty with one of Aussie girls. As this was happeing three or four new york girls walked up and one of the them called out to this flirty firefighter. Aparently he had been flirting with this new york girl at an earlier time and he had been caught. There was a big "ah oh" in the air. SO the aussie girls seeing that there firefigher boys were two timing, picked up there stuff and left. All of this happening right in front of us. It was very interesting to be observing all this, fdny firefights, aussie girls, french people, being caught all in Greenwich Village. Anyways, maybe you had to be there.

Friday Night

A couple weeks ago, after arriving in New York, Jesse and I one night sat outside on the step in front of the church building, watching people and occasionally saying hello as scores of people walked by on Bleeker Street. Most people stopped by just asking how to get to such and such street, or asking if could recommend a good bar or club near by. But one girl stopped by and seeing that we were in front of a church, was confused and asked us what we were doing. We told her that we were in the village for the summer to help the church with their project of turning the first floor into an Art Gallery and putting on other events such as jazz concerts and film discussions. She was amazed that there was a conservative bible-believing church in Greenwich Village and that two young guys would come and work with them. From there we got to know her some. We learned that she is a New York City area native, NYU graduate, very liberal and currently co-produces film trailers for Miramax films. And from there we spent the next the hour and a half discussing everything from politics and gay marriage to religion to the Da Vinci code to jazz and New York City. As it was very late into the evening she left with a promise of hanging out some time again. I had it hoped that it would be sooner then later. Friday night she had called me back, (after leaving one or two voice messages in the last two weeks), and had invited us to a party/fundraiser she was having to raise money for a play that she is producing in New York City's Fringe Festival in August. So we arrived late (after leaving a Jazz concert in the outskirts of Brooklyn), to the party. It was low key, and it was a good time to meet people and chat. There were actually two people from Minneapolis visiting their friend Michael for a couple days. Michael was originally from Minnesota and had moved to New York several years ago, and has graduated from NYU’s theatre school. I had a decent conversation with Michael about why I was in New York and that I was planning on moving here in the next year to start a church. I stated the church would be more of a living community, meeting in people’s apartments rather then in a big building and that at the right time God would provide a apartment or brownstone for the living community to reside in. I mentioned that I felt that my situation of staying in Greenwich Village for the summer for free was one act of God’s Providence among many others. And it bear witness to God’s leading me in all this, giving me assurance that at the right time God would indeed provide an adequate building for the living community. He said that all this sounded amazing to him, and he’d been interested in hearing more.

If you believe in prayer, take some time and ask God to reveal himself to Elisa and Michael, and that Jesse and I could be used by Him in this.

Wholesome Shopping and a chat with a Sister.

I really should write about what I have been doing in New York for the last two and half weeks, and I will, but for now I will tell about today, and then slowly fill in the details of the last two weeks in the next several posts. +

The first of the two more interesting things that I did today was I went grocery shopping. I took the 6 train up a few stops to Union Sq, where there is a large Whole Foods. This Whole Foods had to be one of the coolest groccery stores I had every been to. I don't really know what it was about it, but it made groccery shoping fun. Perhaps it was all the interesting and well dressed people who shopped there, or the healthiness of all the food and the neat designer packaging they came in. I'm not really sure but it was fun.

The second intersting thing I did to day was I meet with Sister Mary Ann, a Nun, at an old catholic convent in SoHo. I noticed the convent the last week during one of my jogs. I looked it up online, found a number, call, and set up a meeting. I was curious to see how they lived in community, and worked out the rythmns of prayer and so on, in the context of busy city life. Over a cold glass of ginger ale, we dicussed these things. I was very helpful and a clarifying puzzle piece in thinking about moving towards living in community in the city.

Just by way of reminder, the church I'm working with has a store front gallery space/venue. So tomorrow Jesse (my comrade in arms) and I will be putting a Jazz show. It's free so hopefully a lot of people from the village will stop in and check it out. +