Eshtine

Where the streets have no name

Chad Canipe died yesterday. I only met him a few times, but he was friends with my new group of friends here in Cincinnati. His death was incredibly sudden. He was thirty-three years old and leaves behind a wife and two little boys.
He was big on Jesus, big on U2. Today we've been cleaning up the church building next door, a really pretty old church called St. Elizabeth's, for Chad's memorial service tomorrow. It's the sort of place where the plaster is iffy in spots and the window saints are maybe missing the occasional toe but you look up and find unexpected angels in corners. My kinda place, in other words. When I walked in out of the drippy coming-of-spring rain, into the wide open space where pews used to be, where a dome high overhead was letting in what light could muscle past the clouds and the stained glass, the opening organ and guitar notes of "Where the Streets Have No Name" were sounding. And two thoughts struck at once: one, I'd never heard that song in a more appropriate setting, and two, as many meanings as that song has for me already, I'll never again hear it without thinking of Chad, thinking of this day.