It started with a mysterious act of apparent malice, but it turned into an expression of grace. According to Manhattan resident Micah Latter, Good Friday this year saw the arrival on her street of a huge wooden cross, chained to a lamppost. No-one knew where it had come from, or who had put it there, and more bizarrely still in the days that followed it kept moving around – being fixed to various posts and fences.
The name of this particular part of New York? Gay Street.
At first Latter was perplexed and upset. As a committed Christian herself, she got the distinct impression that the instrument used to torture and crucify Jesus was being misappropriated to spread hatred (even though the street was actually named in 1833, when 'gay' meant something very different). She told website Popsugar: 'As a Christian, the cross is a sign of love, peace, and hope and it was clear the mysterious owner of the cross was not sharing those same values.'
Then, Latter had an idea. She rallied friends from the neighbourhood, grabbed an eclectic range of paints and some champagne, and embarked on a very creative response to the unheralded and unexplained actions of the unknown cross-mover. In an impromptu act that was part-street party, part-craft session, Latter and her neighbours (and some intrigued passers-by), repainted the cross in the colours of the rainbow, partly to demonstrate inclusivity to the LGBT community, and partly as a demonstration that the cross is fundamentally about grace, not exclusion.
