Wednesday, August 06, 2008

A Trip Into The City

Last night our family traveled to "The Bridge" as we do each Tuesday night. The service is located at a church near the corner of Cermack and Ogden in a neighborhood known as Lawndale. This is a very urban area with a great deal of poverty very apparent.

On Monday night we had bad storms come through Chicago. I slept through them, but many of my co-workers reported the winds bending the trees in their lawns. As we drove toward the city we passed a cemetary that had fully uprooted trees lying on the ground, and a great many branches shaved off the tops of the trees that had remained standing. It was the kind of storm that keeps electric and road crews busy.

I had an all new experience with the reality of disparty between the classes even right here in America as we were approaching the building for the service. As we were travelling down Cermack a full 20 hours after the storms, a giant tree still lay across 2 of the 3 lanes of the street. Now let's be fair, this is a major thouroughfare. It is a six lane divided road with 3 lanes in both directions. Even still, after nearly an entire day the city had not arrived yet to clear the impass.

I was puzzled, and bewildered once again by the realities of a whole different world only twenty minutes from the house.

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