What will be my new Mt Eden?
Note: I wrote this update over a week ago; I’ve had visitors and have been busy socializing and entertaining and simply didn’t realize I hadn’t hit “publish.”
One of my favorite places to go in the middle of the day here is Mt Eden. Whether it is raining or pleasant, windy or calm. There’s a window of time from about 12 noon to 12.30 daily that there are few (if any) crowds of tourists at the summit, the traffic between the church and there is easily navigable, and I’m able to find a bench to sit and reflect.
Today was one of those days. I needed to clear my mind, and I went to the summit. I stood on this little mound, where I get to face the CBD but still look over the crater, and just looked out for a while. The sun was in my eyes, so then I went over to the lookout platform and looked toward Newmarket, Mission Bay, Rangitoto, and the other places in the distance. I looked for a while, closed my eyes and felt the breezes for a while, and soaked it all in.
What will be my new Mt Eden?
When I get back to Chicago, my busiest schedule yet awaits me. Four classes. Three jobs. One internship. Friendships and relationships. Weddings, including one I’m officiating. Traffic and appointments and writing my ordination paper and making concrete plans for the future.
What will be my new Mt Eden?
Obviously it won’t be a mountain, or really even a decent hill. (The wind might be straight-on.) I’ve been thinking about and wrestling with this, and I don’t exactly know if I have one in Chicago. Is it riding the L and people-watching, traveling destinationless within a city I love? Is it taking a book and sitting down at Promonotory Point next to the water? Is it sitting on the pier at Museum Campus, looking back up toward the Loop with my feet dangling off the edge? They all serve some of Mt Eden’s function, but not all.
Maybe it’s just wrestling with the idea of a reprieve from Chicago’s ~3 million people here in this comparable hamlet of ~440,000 in Auckland City. Maybe it’s the connection with nature that exists in a city and country so much younger than my own. Maybe it’s being no more than an hour from the ocean no matter where I travel on this island, or the still-evolving volcanic nature of this place. Maybe those things connect with me in ways I do not yet realize.
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Daniel Ross-Jones serves as Minister for Youth & Young Adults at First Congregational Church of Palo Alto, United Church of Christ. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area for a time still measured in months, he is frequently getting lost and discovering treasures of a landscape very different from his Upper Midwestern roots. Green Jello Hotdish is a blog exploring the intersections of his days. 
