On Sunday, July 22, during my vacation in Milwaukee, I decided to drive to the State Capitol after church. I figured that a leisurely stroll through an old building (created by men with God-given ingenuity) and a restful afternoon beside Lake Monona would be a great way to spend the Sabbath. The church service I had attended was really encouraging, and undoubtedly I took something away from the sermon that was preached. Little did I know that my lessons for the day were far from over.
I approached the building from the southeast side, feeling as if I had suddenly walked upon a small slice of Rome. Every foot of the edifice is awe-inspiring: the Corinthian columns with their intricate capitals; the elaborate friezes; the numerous sculptures that mottle the estate; the exquisite manner in which the staircases were formed; the minute details of foliage at the crest of almost every window; and of course, the dome rising higher than every building in the city. Inside, the art on the walls and ceilings is breathtaking, as well as the various monuments and overall architecture. Near the highest point of the interior, they allow you to circle the base of the dome and examine pictures and preserved items from the early 1900s (when the capitol was built). Being a native Californian, I am fond of Sacramento's capitol; however, I have to admit that Madison is the victor on this one.
After spending about an hour inside the building, I went back outside to get some more pictures of the exterior (I brought my wonderful digital camera with me). However, I had done quite a bit of walking, and so I rested on a bench and began to post some of my pictures on Instagram. Due to a glare from the sun, I squinted hard at my phone. It was at this moment that a man looked over at me from maybe fifteen feet away and said, "Those phones don't get any smarter, you know!" A young woman who was with him (I'm guessing they were both in their early thirties) chuckled at his joke. I laughed and responded, "It doesn't help that I'm four phones behind the newest model!" as I continued to post my pictures. The man sat next to me on the bench and introduced himself.
Immediately, I noticed three things: his breath was heavy with the smell of alcohol, he sat very close to me, and his voice was overtly effeminate. We shook hands and I told him my name. After this, he looked closely at me and asked, "Did you see the inside of the capitol?" I replied that I had, and that I thought it was amazing. He peered into my eyes then and asked me, "But did you see?" I informed him that I had spent an hour inside just looking at everything, so I'm pretty sure I saw. But I had a feeling this wasn't the kind of seeing he wanted from me. He stood up, reached out his hand, and softly said, "Come with me." The young woman continued her bout of chuckling. I didn't really want to go with him, to be honest, but I appreciated his philosophical question and his soft-spoken manner. So I agreed and followed him.
As he gave me a mini tour of the exterior, he pointed out many parts of the building. "This was built in the 1800s," he told me. "Everything you see was not made by a machine, but by hand. Every column, every stair, every frieze, every sculpture....All of it was made by hand. See the sculpture on top of the building? That's Lady Liberty! Americans didn't design the capitol; they brought over Italian architects to create it." He provided further information in this vein. Between each factoid was a small period of silence, only broken by his intermittent question: "Did you know?" When I answered that I did not know, he would tell me, "Now you know."
As the tour progressed, he became increasingly affectionate; he would brush my arm with his hand, place a hand on my shoulder, etc. This made me extremely uncomfortable, and I think he noticed that I was inching away from him every time he made such a move. I was also somewhat annoyed by his assumption that I was not properly awed by the building, but I did check my heart and observed that perhaps I was not as appreciative of the amount of energy and effort it took to build the edifice as I should have been. And even though he was well on the way to drunkenness, the young man had a great point when he stated, "All of this took thousands of man-hours to build. So many men put so much energy into this. And yet you can capture all of it with a click of a button on your camera." I failed to hide my underlying annoyance during our "tour," so he stopped near the end and asked, "Are you interested? Because if you're not interested, this is a waste of my time." I responded, "I am interested, and I don't believe anything is really a waste of time." He scoffed. "Typical Californian attitude." Deciding I needed to be slow to anger and try to weave faith into the conversation, I said softly, "I think it's more of a Christian attitude, personally. God is in everything, even in potentially 'wasteful' situations...so I don't think anything is a waste of time." He thought about that. "I'm not Christian, so I wouldn't know. Come on, come with me."
He led me to the bottom of some stairs, where he pointed at a dark sculpture of the person he called "Lady Liberty." After asking if he could take some pictures of me and the capitol with my camera (I was somewhat apprehensive about this, since I feared he would drop the camera in his tipsiness; but I agreed), he told me, "Kory, this is where we leave." He invited me to have cocktails with him and the young woman, but I declined, since I do not drink alcohol, I still wanted to see more of the capitol, and I was feeling uncomfortable around him. But I thanked him for all of the factoids and for taking the time to talk to me. I extended my arm to shake his hand, but he embraced me and kissed my ear. Then we parted ways.
Reader, I will be honest with you: as I walked away from that man, I felt nauseous. Never in my life have I received any kind of unsolicited physical affection, particularly from the same sex. I approached the building again, praying for myself and also for the man's salvation. I asked that God would bring to his attention the little seed that I tried to plant: that God is in everything (He is sovereign and involved in the small details, after all). I also asked that the annoyance I displayed during our "tour" would not give Christians a bad name. In fact, I felt a conviction that I should have acted more upbeat and invited his info more readily.
About half an hour later, I went to the Internet to check some of the information the man had given me. I always want to make sure I am receiving accurate information, just as the Bereans did (Acts 17:10-11). It turns out that most of the "facts" he gave me were not true at all. Although I will not provide all the details here, I will say that Italian architects did not design the capitol (it was George B. Post from New York), the current building was not built in the 1800s, and the statue on top of the building is not Lady Liberty (they call her "Wisconsin"). I'm not sure where the man got his information...or perhaps the alcohol mixed up his facts.
But reader, I don't want you to think I posted this story to make fun of the man. While the way he acted toward me was unwarranted, I really admire some things about him. He was gentle, soft-spoken, informative, and thought-provoking. He challenged me to stop and think about what I was seeing, and reflect on how much effort men put into beautifying such an incredible edifice. In my research, I learned that the stonemasons had purposely left the designs at the top of one exterior window asymmetrical because, in their words, "Only God is perfect." The young man's information was the impetus for that research. Furthermore, he was attentive and very friendly toward all strangers we walked past during our tour.
I began to ask myself how differently Christ would have looked if I had met Him outside the capitol building, face-to-face, that day. Would He not have been gentle, soft-spoken, informative, and thought-provoking? Would He not have been kind to passing strangers? Don't we see that in the gospels? How is it that this man, smelling of alcohol and not a Christian, was able to emulate our Lord and Savior better than we do at times? Sure, I don't think Jesus would be all that interested with the efforts that men put into creating a building. Nonetheless, He said things that caused people to think outside the box; indeed, many of His words offended and probably even annoyed others. This young man went out of his way to share untruths with a (partially) willing listener. I pray for myself and any Christians who read this: may we be gentle and informative as we go out of our way to share the Truth with willing listeners.
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