"Walk Humbly With Thy God"

838 5th Avenue facing Central Park West

838 5th Avenue along 65th street

Every day on my bus route home I see fragments of biblical scripture etched onto the facade of this building (above). The wall facing central park reads “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Mark, 12:31) and the other side reads “Walk humbly with thy God” (Micah, 6:8 - currently blocked by construction). These words are written in massive font with all capital letters and are placed in a location that is impossible to miss. Every vehicle that cuts east across town through Central Park must pass this building. It sits directly across the street from the prestigious Temple Emanu-El and so I initially assumed it was an extension of the temple. A quick Google revealed that it is actually a complex of condominiums, formerly referred to with the epithet “The House of Judaism”.

Contextually, the phrase “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is amongst the bible’s greatest commandments and is preceded with “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”. Jesus is telling his followers to love their lord completely, but to also love their fellow man just as they love themselves. This passage was embodied through Dorothy Day’s life. She became apart of the Catholic worker movement removing herself from the hierarchic nature of the Church. Instead, she joined those who lived on the margins of America’s upwardly mobile society. She stripped herself of everything in order to fully lend herself to God’s love.

The second phrase is actually the end of a rhetorical question which asks: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” In this passage, God addresses the Israeli’s who were leading sinful lives at the time. This notion of walking “with” God seems the most operative to me.  He doesn’t ask the Israeli’s walk “as” him, or “behind” him, or “ahead” of him; he asks them the walk “with” him, beside him, hand in hand with him. In Liebman’s book Peace of Mind he taps into this idea of having a collaborative relationship with God. He calls his readers to shed their concept of God as a person and to see him as a force of love. According to him, this force or energy can be channeled to help people advance themselves to do God’s work in the world and to be productive.

When I pass this complex on the corner of 65^th and Park Avenue and, I cannot help but feel a bit judged and patronized every time I read the words. They are instructive and hold so much biblical weight. Their sheer size seems to evoke much more power than that of the small text that appears in the bible. As I read them I feel as I am being held under the direct scrutiny of God. I feel like I have a responsibility. I think these phrases were probably engraved into the building for that exact reason—to remind God’s people of their responsibilites. New York City is such a busy, fast-paced place and it is easy to forget how to act and how to treat one another. No one seems to have enough time to spend with their families, go for a walk, read the bible or go to Church. But, perhaps all anyone needs is a little reminder to walk with God and to love each other. 

References

Day, Dorothy. The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981. Print. 

Liebman, Joshua Loth. Peace of Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946. Print.