Before I Die I Want To…

Posted by DJL on Nov 6, 2013 in Good! | 5 comments

Six and a half minutes. That’s all it will take for you to watch this remarkably inspiring TED Talk of one person’s sensitivity and vision that became a gift first to her neighborhood and then to neighborhoods throughout the world.

Candy Chang is what I would describe as a community artist. She is, indeed, an artist…and a designer…and an urban planner. But what strikes me most about her is that she takes all these varied skills and uses them to offer gifts to her community, to invite her community to understand, refine, and claim their identity more fully. In this sense, then, she is an artist for her community, a public artist devoted to the welfare of her neighborhood.

Because of these commitments, she has launched several projects that are at once ingenious, simple, and inspiring, each involving some of the abandoned buildings of her home city, New Orleans. One such project included putting name tags on the front of an abandoned store front; but instead of reading “Hello, my name is…”, these nametags read, “I wish this was…” and invited passers-by to share their dreams for this vacant shop. At the site of another abandoned building, that I gather had some neighborhood or historic significance, she erected spaces on which people could write some of their memories of the building and what took place there. Rather than remaining only a decrepit abandoned lot, the building front because a testimony, even a memorial, to all the small and grand things that had happened in its premises.

In her most recent project – inspired by the loss of a dear friend – she placed on the side of an abandoned and vacant home large chalkboards stenciled with the words, “Before I die I want to…” and invited her neighbors to share some of their hopes and dreams for their lives. The invitation was eagerly accepted – first in New Orleans and then around the world – and what people shared was moving, poignant, humorous, and all so human.

So there it is: one person, moved by the death of a friend to reflect more deeply on life, and committed to creating a public work that invited her neighbors to do the same. As I continue to think about worship as a public work, I wondered how we might imagine our congregations becoming such a resource to our communities – creating space to reflect on what matters in life – or our households to our neighborhood, or ourselves to those around us in school or work.

We’ve generally not been trained to think this way; rather, we are often trained to think of our own needs, to try to make sure we can get by, but here – as in the story of the prodigal son that has occupied me of late – we discover that community art and public works and gifts of love are more of those things that you can give and give and give…and only have more.

Six and a half minutes. That’s all it will take. I hope you take the time and are as moved as I was.

Notes: 1) If you are receiving this post by email, you may need to click here to watch the video.
2) If you want to discover more about Candy Chang’s work and projects, you can visit her website.