Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Day Two

A Foretaste of the Kingdom (and the Gathering)

Our wake up call came abruptly at 7:30 with the twing-twangiest country music you can imagine blaring through bus speakers.  Many had a fitful night's 'rest' but to our happy surprise we arrived at the Louisiana border much sooner than we had expected.  New Orleans was just 93 miles away.  After flooding a Cracker Barrel with a busload of half-awake Wisconsinites with that funny accent of ours we bravely returned to our bus for the last leg.  We saw the garden district (otherwise known as mansion district), some marks left from Katrina and finally arrived in the French Quarter - our home for the next week.  

Deanie's was our lunch spot and lived up to our hopes for a truly Cajun experience.  (Who knew new potatoes rolled in cajun pepper could taste so good as an appetizer?)  After our lunch (which had not come long after breakfast) and 22 hours in a bus, we were ready to use our legs to explore.  Our first adventure was to an above ground cemetery just a few blocks from our hotel.  But our energy was soon drained by a fierce midday sun.  Our extremely knowledgeable tour guide must have been disappointed in us as we literally melted before we were even half done with the tour.  The intricacies of crypts, bodies from the Revolutionary War, the Protestant section and the difference between wrought iron and cast iron soon became lost on a bunch of people who just felt hot.  And yet our brave clan from Onalaska refused to complain.  We sought shade wherever we could and leaned on our knees, but we would not give up.  If nothing else, the cemetery tour will be a shared (hot) experience for all of us to remember.  

After the tour it was time to get to our hotel, the Chateau Bourbon, which is beautiful.  A pool waits in the central courtyard for lots of fun throughout the week and we all have rooms on the 3rd floor.  The hotel itself is located on Canal Street - the main north/south thoroughfare in the touristy part of New Orleans and Bourbon Street is just around the corner from the back door.  After a couple hours of personal time, our group took a trip down the bawdy Bourbon street.  

Let me just say that in 1992 I, personally, went on my first youth gathering as a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod 15 year old youth.  What I remember most from that whole week (which is really too bad for all the efforts made by the Church to provide amazing faith experiences) was the feeling I took away from Bourbon St.  It felt dirty in every way to me.  It is definitely a rated R place with its many "gentlemen's clubs", nasty T-shirts and odd smells.  Yet Bourbon St lives in the consciousness of most Americans, and is definitely not a secret for our young people who are here (nor was it for me when I was 15).  This is an age of curiosity and exploration while discovering personal values and receiving the gifts of the identity God gives each of us as his own child.  I believe it my job as Pastor to help our young people process these sights and sounds, smells and temptations.  Where is God in all This? (WIGIAT) as my seminary professor would say.  So we went.  Our youth had pizza and strolled all the way to the end, only to be happily surprised by how much better the French Quarter felt once they turned off Bourbon St.  There, we saw fun little art shops with blown glass and pretty dresses and ICE CREAM!  Any street without and ice cream parlor can't be all that great, right?  

For the rest of the night we looked forward to tomorrow's Swamp Tour and time in the interaction center.  And, of course, tomorrow's first mass gathering at the Superdome.  What's amazing about New Orleans right now is that there are already hundreds of groups of young Lutherans flooding the raunchy and the beautiful sights of New Orleans.  We met some from Elizabethtown, PA, Norfolk, VA, Orlando, FL and the next group we saw was from West Salem, WI.  That's how it goes down here. There is an odd city with unique customs and many rich treasures to enjoy while also so flawed.  And amidst this beauty and brokenness are a bunch of people with high hopes that they will grow in Christ, serve those in need and get to know strangers... all in the name of Jesus.  It is in many ways a foretaste of the Kingdom... and the gathering.