City Thoughts

I've always been intrigued by the city; its life, movement, ability to bring about wonder and horror. When we started looking for a new place to live a number of weeks ago we were faced with the question of "where do we live?". Our next move had always had two parts to it 1. Get a smaller place (preferably an apartment) 2. Move more into a city rather than away from it. What we really desired was to move to some downtown area where mass transit would get us from place to place, where walking and bike riding were the way of things, and culture opportunities were many. Well, our move happened earlier than we expected and so things didn't turn out quite like we thought they would (God always seems to have a sense of humor that way). The house we are buying is bigger and it is not in what one would call a proper downtown filled with cultural diversity and culture. On the other hand, it is only 2 blocks from downtown Zeeland (with library, a couple of places to eat, coffee shop, bike shop [of great importance]) that allows us to do a lot of walking and for Chris a safe place to ride his bike. But even though the city is small in this case it seems to me that it can have much of the same concerns and needs of a larger city. There is a need for beauty, community, and more. As we head into this next and unexpected step it behooves me to think about this city I'm in and what I can do to help it become the city that reflects the heart of God. For more on that last one read the very excellent review written on the book till we have built Jerusalem by none other than my daughter Gayle. She wrote the review for the Work Research Foundation where she is working again this summer. The review raises questions for all of us as to how we bring about the good of the city.