This evening, driving east on the way home from my office, I passed an office front church in a tiny strip mall. The name of the church was printed by an unskilled hand; papers, rags and cans littered the area around the front door. The name was Church of the Streets to Destiny. Now, as you might be able to tell just from the name of the church, the street I take home is an interesting one, the place where you find thieves peddling stolen goods, thugs, hired guns, streetwalkers, pimps, and drugdealers. This is an urban war zone and while the air is not filled with napalm, it is filled with diesel, meth fumes, garbage, and, were I poetic, lost dreams and hopes. Although my office is in a safe enough place -- a medical school -- that school is located a few blocks down the street from less savory places, places where you hate to hit a light just turning red as you know you will have to sit there for a moment or two, long enough to witness a major crime being committed--hopefully without being the victim.
When the west was first occupied by white folk -- the thieves, thugs, hired guns, streetwalkers, pimps, and drugdealers peddling snake oil and opium -- the west was its own rural war zone. It is my feeling that the west was civilized when men brought their wives west with them -- actually, and better said, when the wives insisted on coming along. They built churches, schools, historical societies and created charities, museums, musical events, craft fairs. The raw elements were either civilized, jailed, or pushed out to new territories.
So, my question regarding the church was whether or not it was created by women, hoping to bring god to a godless land, or by men, hoping to save souls and whatever else they wanted to do. While that little church might be successful in bringing order to a disorderly environment, one has to wonder if it has the potential to recover lost dreams and hopes that once formed part of what most people hope is their destiny.
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