While at a local restaurant for lunch the other day I had just finished ordering my usual dish from Ashley when I received a call from Dipak which prompted me to speak to George who happened to be at another table at that time. George called Dipak and left for his house immediately but not before secretly paying Ashley for my meal. The entire interaction took less than ten minutes but understanding the setting, characters and roles in this drama vignette illustrates the first step in the process of urban exegesis.
The Daily Restaurant in the Outer Mission District had been a sub par Chinese restaurant with low scores from the Health Department for years. When new ownership took over I remained at a skeptical distance from across the street at the church where I serve as associate pastor, San Francisco Christian Center. Though the church is predominantly African-American and I am white, the surrounding neighborhood is primarily comprised of Latino, Pilipino and Asian families - first, second and third generation. While Chinese restaurants cater to people of all backgrounds, it wasn’t until I saw several tour shuttle buses of tourists from China file out on our block and head straight for the Daily Restaurant that I thought I should give the new management a chance. Why would they come all the way out here given all of the options for authentic Chinese cuisine in Chinatown or the Clement District? They must be doing something right.
That was a year and a half ago. Now I’m a regular. Every Wednesday I order Mongolian Beef over rice and I haven’t found its equal. Ashley studies at San Francisco State University when she is not waiting on tables. And she studies in between waiting on tables when business is slow. She is in her early twenties. She is polite, sharp and ambitious. Her English has improved a great deal since she immigrated her from Hong Kong three years ago but not as fast as it would have had her daily life not been dominated by Mandarin speaking family members, co-workers, customers and the television actors on the flat screen behind the counter.
George is also a regular. In fact he has made the table in the corner into an office space, of sorts. He is an independent garage door installer and repairer. Before and after jobs and when waiting for a new call George parks himself at his office/meal table. A gregarious, hospitable man in his early sixties, George is originally from Iran but he doesn’t identify it as his homeland. He is from Assyria. In his thirties he left the Christian village where his ancestors had lived for generations and traveled to Turkey where he lived for years before moving to Germany. From there he eventually made it to the US where he took up the trade of garage door installation. One day he saw me studying the Bible while eating lunch and initiated a conversation about the Assyrian Orthodox Church he attends for special events in the Central Valley. We’ve been friends ever since.
Two blocks from the restaurant and the church is a small neighborhood community center at Lincoln Park. Lunch is served Monday through Friday to a large group of mostly seniors for two dollars a person. Following the meal a bingo game provides the same audience with an opportunity for a daily gambling rush and a chance to win back weeks’ worth of lunch money. My first day visiting there I sat down next to a diminutive Indian gentleman whom I later learned had a reputation of never talking to anyone. Well, he talked with me. He talked about growing up in Calcutta, of studying agriculture in Utah, of coming to Hollister to work on a large farm, of visiting a friend in San Francisco and learning about making and selling incense –which became his career as a small businessman until he retired after sinking into a depression after a major heart surgery. Dipak and I began a friendship that day that has drawn our families together for meals and opened up occasions for working on projects together and celebrating birthdays.
So on that day when Dipak mentioned that his garage door was broken and I connected him to George who fixed it after telling Ashley that he was paying for my lunch it was a brief interaction between four people in the Outer Mission District of San Francisco that was unnoteworthy and soon forgotten. But if one were to exegete this minor occurrence of daily urban life there would be discovered a nexus of fascinating narratives , culturally informed perspectives and contextually embedded meanings which would help the observer to interpret this small “text” in the story of San Francisco today.
Biblical exegesis always begins with observation. And observation delights in the basic building blocks of texts –words. Yes, eventually we will consider syntax, grammar, etymologies, structural units, frameworks, historical/cultural backgrounds, intertextuality, theological presuppositions and always context, context, context. But if we ever lose our ability to relish the beauty and power and depths of words themselves we become more concerned with our clever interpretations than the gift of the text. I love what cities represent in all of their complexities, contradictions, glories and tragedies. But if I ever lose sight of caring more about my profound interpretations and strategic proposals for the amelioration of urban conditions than Dipak and George and Ashley then I have left the gift behind and make too much of its wrapping. Urban exegesis may begin with persistent observation of the individual lives of those who make up our cities but may it tenaciously continue to return afresh to discover new richness the more we appreciate their meaning embedded in all their contexts.