Sunday, January 16, 2022
Sunday Reflection: In the City
This week I had the chance to get out of the city-- to be out on a mountain ridge in the snow on nordic skis, looking down into the valley I had ascended from.
It was far from my usual haunts. I have always lived in cities; the smallest metro area I have lived in was Waco, and it has a population of over 250,000. Cities are fascinating organisms, which simultaneously solve and create the problems in our lives. We run into people who are very different than us, as we are all squeezed together, but we too rarely get to know them.
I'm fascinated by the way that Jesus and (later) the apostles of the early church moved in and out of cities, varying solitude with intense congregation. That matters, I think, even though we don't think about it often. Cities let us influence or learn from a large number of people all at once, but it can be overwhelming.
Sometimes I will be driving at night and see the light on in a house out in the country, and I always wonder what the people there are doing. The truth, of course, is that they are doing pretty much the same thing as I am: cleaning up after dinner, looking at messages, watching some TV. But somehow it seems so different.
The pandemic has taken away some of the allure of city living, it seems. People are isolate in a place where social interaction is supposed to be a part of the deal. Is this another way the deck is being re-shuffled?
