There's a spot on Randolph Road going to church that makes me glad to be in the city. It's when I just round the top of the hill near Wendover Road, and I catch my first view of Charlotte. There it is with its towers and spires, reaching upward to heaven, like the fingers of a giant, beckoning us towards it.
Nothing compares to a modern city--nothing. Nothing like it has ever existed on earth--not in Rome or Babylon, not even in Babel has there been such towers that reach to the heavens. In the morning or in the evening when the sun is right, they seem to catch fire, reflecting the orange rays of the sun. In the night the twinkle with electric stars, dimming the faint light of the moon and the distant planets. All this was built by people, people who dreamed and worked and sweated their way to the topmost buildings, who envisioned a world of beauty and utility, who laid down layer upon layer in regular rows so they could wind their way in their metal vehicles around the bases of the massive stone slabs., and climb up their interiors until they stood over the world on the edge of open space.
I know I'm getting a bit poetical about all this, and I admit, I'm digressing. Ever since I stopped traveling daily into the country and daily turned my car towards the city, It has amazed me. The city is an amazing place to see, but it is an even more amazing to live. It is a place teeming with human life in its fullness.
The school where I work sees itself as a ministry to the city. We even have a department of urban ministries. We believe that the city is the key to changing the world. After all, this is where the people live, and where they meet across the barriers of cultures. We need to see and feel the life of it, pray for it, witness to it, and yes, love it.
Charlotte is among all the cities I have ever visited certainly one of the most beautiful--so beautiful, in fact, that we often fail to notice. We are like a man married to a supermodel who forgets that all women are like her. Charlotte is breathtakingly beautiful.
But like all cities, Charlotte is a contradiction, it is just as ugly as it is beautiful. We don't see the pain of the people as we rush past, but it is there. The other day, I was traveling on North Tryon, and passed an area where people loitered on the street. I never noticed them before, they were just people. Looking like they were waiting for a bus. My friend who was with me noticed them. They were homeless people hanging near a shelter, waiting to warm themselves inside. It boggles the mind to think of the human suffering those people represented, that they felt. Unlike cities in third world countries, where the suffering is evident, here it goes on behind neat little walls, so we don’t notice.
Christ died in such a city. So did Peter and Paul. Cities were where the ancient church first taught others to love their neighbors.
Cities need to be confronted, not ignored. They need to be embraced, comforted, rebuked, warned, loved and desired. Most of all cities are just people--people for whom Christ died.
How much time do we spend praying for the city? Not enough I’m sure. Jesus prayed over Jerusalem. Surely, we an take some time to pray over a city as beautiful as Charlotte.
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