"Nice View Up Here, Isn't It?" by Madi Keim
Call me crazy, but Pittsburgh did not win me over right away. To be fair, it is difficult to sell me on any city, especially a new one. I am one of those “country people” who would choose a narrow dirt road over a highway any day.
I came to Pittsburgh for this program, tempering my hesitancy about the city with one thought: at least there are big hills. Mountains, hills, oceans—almost any glimpse of nature—remind me of God’s vastness. It is easy to stand before a fjord surrounded by towering, snow-capped mountains and think, “Wow! God made all that!” A breathtaking mountain view leaves little doubt about the creativity of its Creator. As lovely and true as that sentiment is, and as many photographs of God’s creation as I have plastered around my little office, I have to admit that Pittsburgh is growing on me.
I began to see the city differently during orientation week, when we prayed over Pittsburgh from the top of the Duquesne Incline. It struck me that cities, too, reflect our attempts to participate in God’s creative work. We build towers, bridges, and roads to accommodate our lives. We try to make them beautiful. It is imperfect, but it is one way we imitate the God in whose image we are made: we build, and we create.
Perhaps Pittsburgh has enchanted me so quickly because it represents the intersection of human creativity and God’s original creation. The city’s buildings and bridges rise among the rolling hills and forests He made first. Pittsburgh is not perfect, but I see in it an appreciation for the land on which it stands as well as the 300,000+ people who call it home—each one created by God with the same intentionality as the world around them. Sometimes, the beautiful view is at the top of a mountain. Sometimes, it is from the Duquesne Incline. And sometimes, it is with the people who we live with and serve each day.
Here, the view is the sweet little community God has already provided. It is my coworkers and the residents at my job placement, who tell me about their mornings, their weekends, and their entire lives. It is the crafts I get to teach, the Hawaiian luau I attended on my first day, and morning walks with my favorite resident. It is the people I serve during my monthly service opportunities, the Sunday school class I will help teach, and the festivals and yard sales this town seems to host every single weekend. It is my new best friend, Johnny Appleseed, the neighborhood cat.
The Lord is at work in all the little nooks and crannies of Pittsburgh, even when the nooks are not spectacular and the crannies seem mundane. In fact, much of His work happens right here, in the ordinary world where I spend eight hours a day preparing art projects, running reports, and designing signs on Canva. What I am trying to say is that, yes, I like Pittsburgh. And I suppose I can admit that I like the Fellows, too. I am not quite a city person yet, but ask me again in a few months.
-Written by Madi Keim, Class of 2027
Madi attended Wheaton College and works at Concordia at Villa St. Joseph as a Pittsburgh Fellow.
Comments