Last weekend, while walking to the office, I came across this dazzling scene on 24th and East Spruce:

What’s taking place in the image is something holy. At the top of the steps, a priest is about to appear and descend to the street with a case on his head that contains a piece of God. He will then walk about the Central District with the living spirit of his church, the Eritrean Orthodox Church, which thrives in the shell of a dead Scandinavian chuch, St. Johannes Dansk Evangelisk Lutherske Kirke.

What I love about the CD, and I hope will be preserved after the present fever of development has cooled, is this confusion of cultures, races, and history. I do not care at all for strictly black neighborhoods, nor strictly white or Asian ones. Instead I follow professor Sheryll Cashin’s advocation of neighborhoods that have three or more racial groups. It is for this reason, I would much rather to live near South Center Mall than in Fremont, which is racially, culturally flat. Nowhere else but in the confusion of colors and languages does our actual future exist. God is on the priest’s head.