Subway Blues

I was recently in Boston in route to give a talk about justice and charity. I had been feeling as though my life was becoming mathematically oriented. I've been reading non-fiction books, like a 1500 page history of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference (pretty wild, i know), or books about theories of violence and poverty, and I'd just been thinking a lot about numbers. There is _ number of homeless people in Lancaster, _ number of children dying of hunger, _number of civilians killed in Iraq. For someone who almost failed a freshman math course in my senior year, these numbers can really give me a headache.

I stood in a Boston subway (after battling a machine in attempts of winning a "Charlie card" which apparently would let me into the subway) among scores of blank faces headed home after another mundane day. Suddenly a man who I assume was homeless began playing "Pachebel's Canon" on guitar. It was beautiful. And when I needed it most, a rather poorly dressed and unattractive couple began to dance awkwardly off-tempo to this classical ballad.

There is a part in the Wilder's "Our Town", when one character who after seeing the world exposed for what it is, asks "Will anyone ever understand." The reply is "The poets and saints, maybe." I always loved this part of the book, because it praises imagination over science, or maybe just because it too is beautiful. I've been making attempts lately at spotting poetry and sainthood in the everyday. It's in the faces of awkward couples expressing love with awkward dances, that I am reminded of the unspeakable truths which are so easily ignored. Its like what Mary Oliver once said "stories are more beautiful than answers."