In those moments when I feel bone-weary, I leave my work unfinished, the lessons half done, the phone calls unanswered and I take a walk down Broadway. Broadway is one of those eclectic streets full of hip furniture stores, adult video shops, bars and tattoo parlors. Around here it's one of the main drags. A mix of "artsy urban downtown" and the addictions and filth that bring my neighborhood down. It's the epitome of diversity. I walk past "Anton's Used Books and Vintage Clothing", the Gay and Lesbian Coalition and then round the corner to a storefront that's been a Christian Science Reading room since I came here, nearly ten years ago. And then there's the noise, five lanes of afternoon traffic whizzing by you. There are panhandlers on the corner and the old man with the sign, "Down on my luck. Anything will help. God bless you." Or my proverbial favorite "Need a drink. Can't do it without your money." The snow that piles up on the edges of the haphazardly shoveled sidewalk is filthy. In the summer the trash fills up the gutter and you see a new layer of graffiti on the sides of buildings and billboards. And right next store, the chic urban crowd is sitting in jackets and ties, sipping coffee at Starbucks. The same place where the homeless men sleep at night.

So I walk and fall into the rhythm of noise and chaos. And after a few blocks I feel at peace. Every time. I'm a city girl. It's the silence that scares me. I like to be able to feel and hear the world at a volume that irritates most people. Give me smog, noise and the evening traffic. It's the heart of humanity.

Broadway is truly a strip of chaos, but it draws me. On this urban piece of concrete and pavement I seem to be able to hear the whisper that is God's voice. An irony, but here Jesus shines like a diamond. It's one of those great mysteries…God is always in the places we were sure he wouldn't be. He's not like us, reserving the holy for Sundays and church. He makes a sanctuary on the corner every Tuesday night when the homeless and disenfranchised line up to get a meal. He builds up an institution of kindness when the old ladies from a neighboring Baptist church go door to door each Thursday, offering to pray for people. He's in the rows of marigolds and swept walk that lie in front of a little Chinese eatery.

God's unmistakable when you walk down Broadway, but don't look for multi-million dollar Christian ministry headquarters or churches with an abundance of both programs and people. He doesn't look like that here…not on Broadway He's in the tiny house on the corner that just got a new coat of paint. Every Monday a small group of neighborhood 30 somethings meet there to pray and challenge each other to keep following Christ. He's in the disabled woman who runs her electric wheelchair up and down the street. I met her at church years ago. Her words are nearly impossible to understand…but if you take the time you will hear such wisdom and walk away knowing that your two legs are nothing to the heart that beats inside of her. He's in the homeless man who loves to say hello to everyone and flash that wild toothless grin. "God bless you!" he declare, raising his filthy hands in the air, "God bless you!" Jesus is beautiful. Even here. Especially here.

Though it might be just a flicker, there is a light. A light that shines even when surrounded by bars with blacked out windows. So…I walk down Broadway. Here, God is not confined by church walls or bound up by my presupposed theology. And it's this flicker of light that can burn into the fire of redemption.

A few blocks off of Broadway sits an old house, built at the turn of last century. I knew the man who lived there. For years he'd been here in the neighborhood to minister, he was always short on money, late and terribly disorganized. Since the day I met him he was burned out. He worked so hard but came across few successes. And though I admired him for many things, my favorite thing about him and the act I valued most was every Spring he would wake up early each morning and plant a beautiful flower garden in his front yard.

To me it was so symbolic of this man's spirit. He believed in beauty. His neighborhood might be poor and undesirable to most. Ugly to many. But this man refused to let that be all. Jesus was his diamond.

I don't have a flower garden, on the contrary, my back yard is a patch of mud and my front yard is concrete. But Jesus is my diamond too. And I like to walk down Broadway because each time, I return home more amazed, sure of the truth that God is here.

* all names and identifying details have been changed to protect anonymity. © Amy Beth Augustin Barlow 2003