Only in New York

• The Wendy's Dollar Menu is $1.19.
• Standing 1/2 inch away from total strangers, while avoiding eye contact for more than 2 seconds, trying not to fall on someone, for up to 10 minutes.
  
• Seeing homeless people every single day.
• Real. Good. Breakfast Sandwiches.
  
• Riding a train with Chinese, Hasidic Jews, Hispanics, Whites, Blacks, and whoever else you can think of.
• Real. Good. Bagels.
  
• Nearly being run over by a taxi and having people close to you laugh and say "welcome to New York."
  

The Mets

So it's either the Mets or the Yankees. You've got to pick one right? I'm not sure it's the same as Chicago with the Cubs and the White Sox where you must pick one and be against the other. It's definitely not real heated in New York. But at this point, when people ask, I always say I'm a Mets fan more than a Yankees fan. Why you ask? Well, it all goes back to my childhood.....not. A few experiences. Comparing the fan base, Mets fans were much more excited and supportive of their team at the first game I went to (granted I sat in pretty bad bleachers at the Yankees game I went to). Then there's the sense of just jumping on the bandwagon of the Yankees, since they are iconic of New York City. Then there's ARod and his fickleness (will he stay with the Yankees or not? How many more millions does he need?).
If you know me well, you know that I've never been a hard-core fan of any team anywhere. So who knows if being a Mets fan will stick? And yes, I did have to do some wikipedia searches to make sure that some info in the post was correct if that tells you anything.
So a few weeks ago, Forefront had a volunteer appreciation and Caren got a bunch of us decent tickets to the Mets Braves game (Mets won by 1, yes!). So here's my boyish picture at Shea Stadium. It was so cold that day!

Presuppositions

So it's been a little weird telling people that I work at Jews for Jesus. I seem to often an "OH" response. It's like I just told them, "and oh yeah, I'm an expert on all things Jewish." It's funny. It's like telling someone you work for a hedge fund and immediately being asked financial questions. Well, I'll tell you now that I don't know a lot of things about Jews in NYC. I'm learning here and there, but my main job is to support the staff who does know so they can reach out to Jews.
Here's the reason I'm writing about this. I don't want to be defined by what I do for a living. I want people to known me for me.
If I tell someone that I'm a "Christian," they immediately have a stereotype in their minds of what that person believes, looks, and acts like. For the most part in New York City, it's negative. We've got to live a life so that people can be surprised when they hear we're followers of Jesus. Am I defined by following Jesus? Yes. However, people have extremely different and diverse definitions to draw from. In this context, I am forced to follow the real Jesus or fall into one of many false definitions.
There's you're fun fact for the day.