by Kirke Elsass
I’ve just returned from my first visit to the Kansas City area. The trip differed from how I acquaint myself with a new place when traveling alone, which I was not. The reason for the visit was introducing our toddler to my wife’s grandmother, the only living great-grandparent. Also in the KC metro were my wife’s great aunt and uncle, a retired Presbyterian minister, and their daughter as well as some family acquaintances.
I view travel as a way of expanding and renewing myself, and when solo I load my schedule with as many novel experiences as possible. In advance, I search Google Maps literally ad nauseum to identify foods, activities, and scenery as well as potential routes and modes of transportation from one to another. My independence allows this all to work out such that I do feel fuller after days of newness crammed into every half-hour.
Early in our visit, people suggested we do this or that unique to the area. We needed to see the Plaza; I might enjoy the National World War I Museum or the historic Union Station; our daughter might be just old enough to love Science City. We saw none of those places. We did squeeze in a barbecue date as a couple and a family trip to the Kansas City Zoo, both unlike anything in Bozeman. But mostly we either visited in living rooms or rested in a hotel built to the mold of hundreds others across the country, and getting from place to place meant driving wide highways lined with all the national chains you know well.
It might surprise you that I nonetheless came away from this trip feeling expanded. For one thing, having never previously met Mindy’s great aunt and uncle I was struck by their genuine love and hospitality. My sense of family grew immediately. But the other expansion became most apparent on our ride back to the KC airport, when Mindy’s great aunt and uncle made clear their profoundly open-minded ideas about faith and ministry. Despite a career of leading congregations, they exhibited a humble and generous vision of what Christianity can be.
Feel free to ask me what downtown Kansas City looks like. I won’t have an answer, but I also won’t resent the reminder of what the trip did not entail. The constraints on my travel that prevented seeing the sights opened other opportunities for witnessing love, decency, and growth in the people right around me. That was worth the trip.