Energy

I am screaming my lungs out, all caught up in the frenzy of the crowd. I’m at Shea Stadium. It’s the bottom of the tenth in the 1986 World Series. The slow grounder off the bat of Mookie Wilson has just gone through the legs of Red Sox first baseman Allan Buchner and we win! Mets win! Mets win! We don’t want to leave the stadium. We are all friends. We are all exultant. It doesn’t get any better than this.

I am walking as fast as I can, being jostled, pushed, propelled out of the mouth of the tunnel from the subway. I am being carried on the motion of the crowd of thousands right into the heart of Tian An Men Square in Beijing, China. It is June 4, 1989. Everyone is hopeful, ecstatic, that reform is coming to Communist China. People talk to me in Mandarin whether I understand them or not. Music blares. Flags fly. Arms hug. Youths exult. Elderly contemplate. I am part of a sea, the crest of a wave, moving in concert with a sea of humanity toward the shore of freedom.

The city swoops me up into her arms and carries me from midtown to downtown. It’s the Centennial Celebration of the Statue of Liberty and we are all celebrating it in the pulsating heart of Manhattan. People are everywhere. They are eating, singing, brake-dancing. There is reggae and salsa and military marches. Kids wear Statue of Liberty head decorations. Adults wave American flags. Even dogs are attired in red, white and blue. The people sweep me along, all the way across from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the Brooklyn Bridge. Later in the darkness sirens howl, spectacular fireworks explode, laser beams shoot up into the sky. There is massive motion and no violence. There is brotherhood and sisterhood among people of every color, multiple dress styles, uncountable different languages. All are celebrating and I am part of it. This is the celebration of the open arms of America, land that I love!

Hang on, little Peggy. Let’s hold hands tightly so we don’t get separated. We are once again a part of that happy company of crowd-loving Chinese going down the ramp of the Star Ferry to cross from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. The signs warn, “Watch out for pick-pockets” so we are careful, but not so careful as to detract from the pure exhilaration of being a part of the crowd, a connected piece of humanity, a couple of cells in the body of all God’s people.

Crowds can do this to me! They give me energy, synergy, life!