fruitfulness

O hai, blog.

In no particular order, these are the factors on which I judge a city:
1) presence of a good co-op
2) reasonably smooth roads
3) fun places to get coffee
4) can be driven out of in 10 minutes or less

Syracuse is a great city by my metric, as far as cities go- although, oddly enough, Richmond is only disqualified by potholes.

One fun thing about Syracuse is that there are so many places to worship. We have Methodists both Free and United, as well as a Unity church if you'd prefer to do without the method. We have a solid smattering of Lutherans, a full selection of Baptists, and a host of homes that have been taken over to house various Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. We have Catholics in at least Italian, Irish, and Polish, and perhaps other flavors as well... and if the Catholics do not fully meet your need for bells, incense, and patriarchy, we have Orthodox churches: Greek, Slavic, Macedonian, Coptic, and Russian, just to name the ones I've seen so far. We have Episcopals all over the city, Presbyterians ranging from the very conservative to the very liberal, and on out further we have a healthy dose of Unitarian Universalists. All this, interspersed with synagogues, mosques, at least one zen center, and I'm sure an even wider variety of religious meetinghouses than I'm able to recognize.

What we do not have, however, is a programmed Friends meeting. Syracuse boasts one Friends meeting, a lovely unprogrammed group that meets in a converted house close to Syracuse University. I've been attending since moving to Syracuse, and the worship there is wonderful. I've appreciated the depth of the Friends I've met there, both in the hour of waiting worship and in the discussions held afterwards.

They are not programmed, however, and do not talk much about Jesus.

Today between worship and discussion, I discovered that I could go upstairs to the First Day room and hear church bells. I sat by the window and listened to the Methodists play:

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

All the world is God's own field. I'm struggling with that, here in Syracuse. I worry sometimes that I'm looking for my field, a place where I feel comfortable, more than I'm focusing on my place in God's field.

Note to self: the goal isn't to find the right patch of dirt. It's to yield fruit to God's praise.