Philadelphia: One
In its best form, bitter coffee is taken with the sweetest chocolate. The confluence of opposites creates a balance that either in isolation cannot. Philadelphia presents opposites and confluences that produce a similar balance and with it, a similar joy. We were surrounded by old and the new: old buildings shaped with Georgian triangles and columns as a contrasting backdrop for skyscrapers in the heart of the commercial part of the city. Driving west, towards Lancaster, we confronted rolling farmland after the total immersion of downtown Philadelphia: urban grit, people, and noise.
Noise, noise, noise.
 On Friday, we headed to Indendence National Park. Perhaps most interesting and current was the lawn as we approached the building. Boots were arranged there, each as a tribute to an American that had died in the current conflict ("war" if you are American, "occupation" if you work for Al Jazeera) in Iraq. Closer to the entrance were a largely disorganized group of shoes but these weren’t boots; they represented the losses of the ordinary Iraqis. Unfortunately they didn’t seem very Iraqi – I’m willing to bet they were shoes representing the Iraqis that had died because I doubt if Iraqis wear pink velcro Reeboks. I may even accept that some wear velcro Reeboks, pink ones, but not all of them.
The park was interesting but I disengage on concocted experience. When I arrive at a place and there are signs everywhere telling me what to see and notice, I often can’t hear the place speak on its own. It loses its memory. We saw a cemetery with enormous tombs later that afternoon on the way to Lancaster. I’m sure in the silence of a place like that the eerie sculptures above the tombs would whisper to you about time, weather, and inevitability. They would make you wonder.
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| Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery1 |
 I still found myself thinking about how ideological America is – how men, intellectuals, converged at this point in Philadelphia and thought up a new way of living. A new way of defining “country.” My background does not leave in me the same susceptibility to the America: New Jerusalem2 civil religion that is given freely throughout most places here and yet there is something very powerful about these ideas which can’t be ignored. In the tiny rooms we saw old furniture, replicas, that housed the men that had foresight enough to create a document that would stand the test of time. Most people have little framework for what the Declaration of Independence and American Constitution represent. It is the difference between the suburbs of Orange County and the poverty of a shanty town on the outskirts of Nairobi. It is the contrast of European establishment and men like Mark Twain. You may use the word gumption rather freely here -
Afterwards we headed west to Lancaster. We encountered hopeless ghetto as we followed highway 30 westward which gave way to quaint suburbs. The sign for Borders informed us that we’d cleared the poverty and by the time we reached Bryn Mawr we were well clear of any of the ghetto malaise. Enough to pepper the experience without spoiling its entirety.
1Find original photos here.
2This term is of my own making. Take from it America as the new promised land, the place which God bestowed to the most blessed of His followers.
11:19:44 PM 
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