First Friday

My wife, daughters, and I took a walk through the First Fridays Artwalk in Phoenix last week. What an incredible experience! Not only is it good exercise (we eschewed the shuttle and walked from the Phoenix Art Museum), but it is an incredible experience in humanity.

First Fridays take place, coincidentally, on the first Friday of each month from 6:00pm – 10:00pm in downtown Phoenix. Local art galleries, museums, churches, and small businesses along Central and Roosevelt streets open up in the evenings and the world comes to their door. Add to this, street performers, costumed folks, vendors and the fact that it costs nothing to visit, and you have an event worth checking out.

The best part about First Fridays is the people. Two rich older Scottsdale socialites stood in the a gallery, rubbing elbows with a couple of tough looking lesbian chicks viewing paintings that were obviously the work of the fluttering Spanish artist standing out front. A skinny dude dressed like a dime-store cowboy complete with a bushy handlebar mustache walks by a young girl sporting a purple mohawk, chains, and more piercings than I can count. Two Sedona type ladies wearing hemp skirts and too much turquoise jewelry pass by an asian girl dressed like a cupie doll. A black man with dreadlocks piled high enough to be seen from outer space hands wearing suit hands fliers to a group of young Hispanic kids walking by. A middle-eastern man sells gelato from the storefront of a gallery where he lives with a native-american artist who makes silver jewelry. A lone girl dances by herself, swaying to music that only she can here from the iPod plugged into her ears. A group of several dozen people amble along made up to look like zombies, carrying signs proclaiming “Lose Weight on the Undead Plan” or “Zombies are People Too.” They are preceded by a group of guys and girls dressed up like the Ghostbusters, complete with Proton Backpacks. People of every color, shape, age, and economic group intermingle peacefully.

First Fridays are also about the music. As you walk the east route down Roosevelt, you wade through pools of music. Our first steps took as past an urban church with young street rappers alternate laying down the best rhymes while sharing their testimonies about Christ releasing them from the bondage of drugs and gangs. Next was man playing the pan pipes, selling his CD’s. A little farther down, in front of a small record store that still sells vinyl was a female heavy metal group complete with a generator and screaming electric guitars. Just across the street was a group of men in kilts playing the bagpipes and on up a ways, a white teen played a snare drum and high hat while a black teen played acoustic guitar and sang love ballads. There was a man sitting at an organ playing big band music and from a local cathedral, the sounds of an a cappella chorus rang out like a chorus of angels. The dreadlocked man in a suit had a large boom box playing reggae and many of the galleries had some sort of peaceful music playing with the exception of the Victorian house with the flashing disco lights that had throbbing techno music coming from inside. A homeless guy sat in the median tapping on an old bongs in a desultory way with a tin can placed in front for donations. A little further up, another guy played blues on a saxophone with a hat in front of him (he received a lot more donations).

Vendors sold everything from homemade jewelry to hemp clothing to tamales, to protest t-shirts while street performers did all kinds of crazy things from magic to the guy who jumped barefoot into a pile of glass.

What a crazy and awesome experience. And, here is where the lesson comes in –

This is what I picture eternal life to be like. As I read the Book of Revelation in the Bible, I don’t see that we will spend an eternity wearing white robes and sitting on clouds playing harps. Where that silly idea came from, I don’t know, but it just won’t seem to die. No, I see eternal life here on earth in a great city with all of the different types of people and cultures in the world, living, loving, and serving together in a truly diverse society. (Revelation 5:9 and Revelation 21:1-27)

As I looked out on the crowds at First Friday, I could see God everywhere. He was in the art and the music. God Himself is an amazing artist and musician. He lavished color, texture, and sound on His creation. I believe that our varied artistic abilities are just one example of the ways in which we are made in His image. He was also in the people. It is much easier for me to see Jesus hanging out in these crowds than to see him in many of the churches I have been to. God loves these people where they are, he wishes only that they come to him. He doesn’t expect them to put on a suit and sit rigidly in pews on Sunday morning, he wants them to put on His love and go into the world around them.

I invite each of you to visit First Friday. Immerse yourself in the crowd. Get a little crazy. Dress differently than you normally would. Get out of your comfort zone. Buy something from a vendor and drop some money in the hat in front of a street performer. Talk to the weirdest looking person that you can find. Your probably the weirdest person they can find too. Experience the wonders of diversity and pray for those around you. Be sure to get that gelato – trust me, it’s worth it.

First Fridays link for info: http://www.artlinkphoenix.com/ or http://phoenix.about.com/cs/enter/a/firstfriday.htm

The next First Friday event is November 6, 2009. Maybe I'll see you there. I'll probably be wearing my kilt.