Where Are You, Jesus?

I'm in San Francisco.

I always get a little nostalgic when I come here for business. After all, I spent a lot of my growing up here. I started my adolescence here, and started finding my way into my grown-up conscience here (I'm still not finished yet). I got beat up here, and tried unsuccessfully to rough up other kids here. I fell into something I imagined was love here, with a fiery Basque girl named Maitae Ituri who called me names.

So when I'm in San Francisco I get a little nostalgic. My work companion and I had a huge dinner at Scalla's and I decided to go for a run, north into my old neighborhood and into my childhood.

Running after a huge Italian dinner is dumb. Doing it in San Francisco is just... stupid. I headed up Powell and felt my side coming undone after two steep blocks, but pressed on to see how far I could get.

By the time I got to the top of Russian Hill I had to either stop or throw up. I realized I was only two blocks from Grace Cathedral so I walked slowly over that way to catch a breather on the great long steps in front of its doors. (See the picture above.)

There are many beautiful churches and synagogues in San Francisco. (I set one of them on fire when I was a kid but I'm not telling that story until I'm more certain of California's statute of limitations.) Tucked among my San Francisco memories of wharfs and skyscrapers and bridges I find many memories of churches: at sunrise, with bells tolling, swaddled in fog, at night with stained glass windows glowing softly from within. They were beautiful but mysterious when I was a kid.

We didn't go to church. I was more than a little afraid of them. I was suspicious of the motives of those who built these huge Gothic piles, certain that they were designed to make me feel small and insignificant. I was suspicious of those who felt they could invoke the presence of God through stone.

Breathing deeply, wincing in pain, and generally feeling fat dumb and old I made my way over to the small park across from Grace Cathedral's great steps. My MP3 player was loud in my ears as I looked up at the smooth stone columns, and I heard MercyMe sing:

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory...

I never spent much time, as a kid, wondering if maybe the builders of these temples simply wanted to bring glory to their God. I never wondered if maybe they were just looking for Jesus, and hoping to coax him back into our presence through these glorious offerings.

Holy, holy, holy

Is the Lord God Almighty

Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God Almighty

But now I looked up at the soaring towers of Grace Cathedral and I thought, "Where are you really, Jesus?"

For some reason I suspect he'd be uncomfortable around these great piles of masonry that were built to cry out his name.

Low clouds started sweeping in and I began to run down the back side of Russian Hill towards North Beach. This was becoming my old neighborhood: Victorian houses with curved bay windows and impossibly steep steps and with every sign in two languages (I saw "No playing or jumping!" printed over a long series of crowded Chinese characters).

I knew these buildings. Here was where my school bus went by on Mason, here was the Cable Car barn, here was the Lucky Laundromat and there, way across the bay, was the steady familiar sweep of the Alcatraz lighthouse beacon.


I slowed down as I came to another church, this one only two blocks from our old house. Saints Peter and Paul Church dominated the intersection around which much of my life revolved.

Mama's Bistro, the brunch spot we went to on special Sundays, was on one corner. On another was the Italian bakery where my sister and I bought foccacia. On still a third was the drugstore I hurried to get Spiderman comic books each month (until Maitae Ituri said I was an idiot and I stopped). Napoli's, our neighborhood grocery store, was half a block down Stockton Street.

Again I couldn't help but look up at the soaring steeples of my youth and imagine them crying out "Where are you Jesus?"

MercyMe was playing another song:

Beyond all the things you may think you know
I'm just a kid trying to make it home
That's it
No more, no less

My nostalgia was tinged with something else and I couldn't quite grasp it or name it.

I stopped and spoke with an older Chinese woman who closing up Napoli's. We talked about what it looked like 30 years ago -- she had been there 40 years. She looked at the sweat running off the end of my nose and laughed, "You came all the way back just to exercise?"

One block later was our house, at 520 Lombard Street. Many of the neighboring apartment buildings had red banners hanging over their doors, set out to proclaim last weekend's Chinese New Year.

Cherry trees were blooming in front of our old house. I twisted off a tiny sprig of pink flowers and put it in my pocket to bring home to the kids, then started running again. I was halfway done and on my way back to the St Francis.

Somewhere near Vallejo street I realized why my normal "I'm back in San Francisco" nostalgia felt so odd and subdued. Struggling up yet another hill, thinking about Jesus and where we might find him, I fiddled with my MP3 player and backed up several songs and listened again:

No more, no less
Lord, I want to go home
Nothing more, nothing less

I realized that I have another home now, one I miss more than I've ever missed San Francisco.

It's a tiny crossroads in the outskirts of an impoverished and beleaguered country. It has dusty red roads and sad buildings. It sits under the African sun forlorn and weary, but hopeful just the same. Its name is Mhlosheni.

Coincidence or not, it's also the place where I would most expect to find Jesus.

Without spires or marble pillars, without hundreds of steps sweeping up as if in prayer, it's the church where I would expect to find Jesus ministering. He'd be tired and dirty. He'd probably be disheveled and weary, but happily helping those in need.

I'll always feel nostalgic about San Francisco. But just now I want to go back and help Jesus. I can't do it today -- a trip halfway around the world may not endear me to my new employers -- so I guess I better find another of the places where He's at work.

Fog and cloud are settling over San Francisco in earnest now. It's late. I have to get up early, so I'm going to go to bed. I'm going to think about cherry blossoms, my kids, Joie, playing with the worship team, and walking in Mhlosheni with the Lord.