The Gospel that many Christians are seeking to proclaim today is, in one formulation, this: good news will sooner or later carry the day. Here are some of the particulars of that message: in the power of the Spirit, Jesus Christ will somehow overcome the principalities and the powers of death and destruction, today and tomorrow and in the hereafter. Which news, in turn, gives those of us who are trying to follow Jesus these marching orders: go with the flow of life, whenever, wherever, forever.
A case in point. Consider the plain, rounded, and antiseptic-looking fenced-in field of grass not far from where I live. I’ve driven by it often. And frequently, upon contemplating it, I’ve been reduced to moments of quiet grief. That guarded grass field is a stand-in for Death. Decades ago, that land was part of a huge military research establishment whose effluence poisoned that now grassy area to the core. To this day, a vast area of buildings adjacent to that field is called “The Arsenal,” even though many of those structures have now been refurbished to form an upscale mall.
The good news is that those three or four toxic acres covered with those drab grasses near the mall are now going to be transformed into a new multifaceted park, with trees and bushes and new green grasses, where kids can play and old guys with canes like me can slowly stroll from bench to bench beneath shading branches. I’m not sure why our local authorities are calling all this a passive park. But I’m all for it.
Let’s hear it for passivity, then! Particularly the kind of passivity that comes to expression in such vital green spaces! True, not far away from this new park you’ll still witness not only the Arsenal and its all-American mallish commercialities, but also a number of dark and sterile several-storied glass-box buildings where the high-tech world of tomorrow is being concocted. Still, let’s hear it for the new park, eh?
In a word, and with due respect to John Wesley, parkliness is next to godliness.
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