I called my friend Jenn (a Methodist from Oregon doing the Lutheran Volunteer Corps in Baltimore) on Tuesday to ask if she'd be available for a weekend escapade to D.C. I called on Thursday to finalize the plans. On Friday night, my housemates dropped me off at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, where I met Jenn and took the bus with her back to her place. Their house is so nice and fresh and clean feeling – ours always feels like a cluttered mess to me...
Saturday morning, we left at 7:45 am to walk to the Methodist church where we were to meet our ride to D.C. We were late, so our carpool actually just picked us up along the street! They were going to a monthly Wash/D.C. area Reconciling Methodists meeting, so we went too. It was a series of adventures getting there though! First, we got blocked on the entrance ramp to the highway by a car that had spun out, so we had to back up and meander our way through Baltimore to find another highway entrance. At that point we would have been about 5 minutes late for the meeting – they had planned to be early because they were bringing the coffee and treats…
But then, our directions took us to the wrong church! The driver’s nephew had looked them up and she hadn’t double checked them before we left. So the other woman called her partner and had her look up directions on Google and tell them to us over the phone. It only should have taken 15 minutes from where we were, but there was construction on Pennsylvania Avenue, which was completely backed up and just inching along. So we detoured. And got utterly and completely lost and confused. We FINALLY made it to Capitol Hill UMC, 45 minutes late for the meeting. Sigh.
It had been dismal and rainy in the morning, but when the meeting was over it had turned into a beautiful, warn, sunny fall day. Hooray! We walked to the Eastern Market and meandered our way through, eating free samples. We bought some pupusas at a restaurant and carried them down past the Capitol to the National Mall where we sat on a bench and ate them.
We discovered a rally going on that focused on ending the genocide in Darfur. There were hundreds or thousands of colorful canvas tents set up that has been painted by different groups, and they had blank ones that anyone could paint – so we did! And we picked up some tickets to the Holocaust museum. We spent an hour at the Museum of the American Indian, which was really cool, and then at 3:30 headed down past the crazy Smithsonian castle to the Washington Monument. Didn’t go in it, just sat on the wall and looked at the reflecting pool, the Lincoln Memorial and the White House. Last stop was the Holocaust museum – we got there at 4:30, just in time for the last elevator up to the beginning of the gallery. It was pretty awesome. The most striking thing for me was the room full of shoes, all different sizes and styles, and just imagining who they might have belonged to. Walking through the boxcar was really powerful too.
Then it was 5:30 and time to head up to U Street for dinner with the Washington Lutheran Volunteers whose house we spent the night at. We discovered another Methodist living there! And when I looked at the pictures they had up of past LV communities, I discovered that I knew one of the volunteers from last year -- she was in my same class at St. Olaf and we'd had some music courses together!
Sunday morning we went to Foundry UMC. They are a very boldly reconciling congregation, as well as the one that a lot of famous people go to (e.g. the Clintons…). The style was pretty traditional, but the content was engaging. One of the nice things about it was that its large spacious sanctuary was practically full. Too often I’m in churches whose congregations just don’t fill up the space, and no matter how many people there are, if the sanctuary looks half-empty, it often feels that way too…
After church, my housemates picked us up, and we dropped Jenn off in Baltimore on our way home. It was a fabulous first trip ever to Washington, D.C. Maybe my second ever will be on January 20th? …
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