We are nearly 4 months into The Pandemic. NYC is gradually opening up, but from all the conversations I’m having with retail business owners, total revenue is still down anywhere from 70–80%. Warm weather provides a respite as outdoor gatherings seem to mitigate the risk of CV-19 spread, but we are now on the other side of the summer solstice, and the days are indeed getting shorter. As they say in GoT, winter is coming, and [winter + CV-19 + NYC] is a daunting combination indeed.
It’s challenging to find silver linings and moments of Grace in all this, but a prominent one has emerged over the last couple weeks for myself and the Little Prince (the sobriquet I use for my 9-year old son). For the most part, regularly scheduled programming for kids has been disrupted- from school, to club sports, summer camps, etc. This void was a major problem during March/April weather, but the summer months and the opening of NYC parks creates an outlet for something that is a bit of a lost art in our hyper-scheduled lives: free play. My son and I are spending 4 hours per day on weekdays, and up to 8 hours on weekends at one of the various parks surrounding Coram Deo. Long days in the park remind me of when I was my son’s age, before screens and other digital forms mediated so many of our social interactions.
The Little Prince’s battery is always fully charged, and so he’ll do whatever with whoever as long as it involves high levels of physical activity. There’s the usual routine of playing soccer, hitting a baseball, or throwing/catching a frisbee/football. But an added delight has been seeing him and his friends create games and competitions using their imagination as well. The other day, he was with his friends Angel and Paul, and so there were three kids total, but only 2 of them had bikes. They ended up designing a race across the astroturf at Dewitt Clinton Park where the fellow sans bike would get enough of a head start to make the race close. Watching them do this over and over again while rotating who was bikeless brought a moment of real joy in the midst of all the heaviness. It reminds me of the words originally spoken by a Christian anarchist about lemons and lemonade.
Of course, soccer continues to be the sport that seems to unite the world better than anything else. You just need 4 cones and a ball to play, and the huge turf field on 52nd street and 11th avenue has become to soccer what the West 4th street Courts in the West Village are to basketball. Over the past few weeks, pick-up games with high level current professional and college D1 players all the way down to washed up has-beens like myself have emerged. It’s a highly Darwinian process where everyone self-selects into the right level, and especially for the younger teenagers who aspire to play with the elite players, they need to earn the respect of their peers if they want to get a touch of the rock. No one cares about your age, race, creed, or net worth- real just recognizes real on the pitch. In many ways, it’s NYC at its finest.
As a father, watching the Little Prince make his way into random pick-up games has been a lot of fun. He’s often the youngest and still several years away from the highest level, but he’s been able to earn enough respect to play in the same game as much older kids and washed-up adults. It began with him watching from a distance. He steadily walks over, and tries to see if anyone will notice him. He evaluates the scene, and if he feels like he’s better than the bottom 2 or 3 in a game, he’ll ask in. When he gets in, the older boys and men are initially soft on him and his tiny 75 lbs frame, but they see he’s got a lot of quickness and skill for a 9-year old, and so after a nice juke or goal, they start to take him more seriously. They might even bang him up a bit, but it’s all done in good faith. As the sun goes down, he gets a bunch of pats on the back and high-fives (there is no social distancing whatsoever), and he pleads with Dad to stay just a little longer. Sure thing, Little Prince, sure thing.
The overall environment both within NYC and nationally continues to be quite charged around issues of race and income inequality. However, I dare say that what is happening in the parks scene in this little slice of Midtown Manhattan provides a window of what hope looks like. Men, women, and children of all colors come to the parks just to get outside and get some space to breathe. The Little Prince and I have been going almost daily for the last 100 days, and the repeated face-to-face contact with folks who were strangers several months ago breeds a familiarity and sense of community that is rare in the city that never sleeps. It has led to countless conversations about this current moment, the creation of text threads among parents indicating when they will be at the park, and most recently, an invitation from the parents of a child the Little Prince trains with for drinks in their home.
Jesus often said, “The Kingdom of God is like…a mustard seed, leaven, a treasure hidden in a field.” During the summer of CV-19, I would say that the Kingdom of God is like the scene at the local parks in NYC.
