the shining city

dear muffin,

I don't have much to share today. just a thought. 

I'd like to show you a city. standing at its center, you wouldn't guess it was an important place. the streets are dusty and strewn with stones easily kicked up by passing horse carts. people shuffle by with burdens on their back, multi-colored scarves wrapping their heads against the sun's heat. street vendors line the narrow market, shouting above the hubbub. dirty children dart in and out of the crowd, knocking against elbows & laughing. women draw water & carry stones & mix mortar; men straighten their backs and squint up at the sky. a wall is being built, and everyone in the city is lending a hand. it's hot & dusty & full of hard work, but I love this place. perhaps that's because I've lived here all my life.

if you rise above the city & view it from the sky, you'll be surprised to notice how sprawling it is. small buildings cover miles in every direction; miles & years. patchwork farms, wooden houses, and the occasional stone structure stretch past the horizon. the higher you rise, the less you see the dust. instead, noise & confusion dim to a distant hum, and the sun makes the city glow like a flame. it is warm, familiar, and safe, full of friends & grapes & summer nights & happy hearts. it is home.

welcome to the city: welcome to Christendom. 

Deuteronomy 6:10-12: "so it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build, houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant—when you have eaten and are full—  then beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."

others laid the streets & planted the gardens. the wall was in place long before I was old enough to notice it. see that bookstore, lined with the wisdom of ages? inside you'll find the labor of augustine, luther, spurgeon, ten boom, lewis, rushdooney, bahnsen, macdonald. the stone steps leading to the front door are old but steady: they were tyndale's life work. there is a museum raised by churchill near an old wooden bridge carefully constructed under washington's hand. 

I live in this beautiful city which I did not build. my house, the work of others, is full of good things which I did not gather. I have eaten & am full of joy; I benefit from the protection of the city's walls. it is easy to forget my house of bondage. truth is, I can't even remember it to begin with; I was given citizenship in this city before I was old enough to know what that meant. 

but I sure am glad to live here. see that patch of packed dirt? that's my garden. don't laugh. if you look closely, you'll see a sprout. 

maybe someday it will grow to be an apple tree.

& maybe that tree will produce my great-great-granddaughter's favorite apples in the city, the city which she did not build. maybe she will munch on an apple while she tinkers with a building design. maybe her little brother will shoot the core from a catapult he built. 

yep. this city is an exciting place to be. now if you'll excuse me... my dirt-patch needs weeding. 

always,

rory

from the inside looking out

“mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest… scratch that… who is the purest of them all?”

dear rory,

once upon a time, in a land that was obsessed with beauty and appearance, lived a woman. this woman was an older lady. she was small. she was slight. she was weak and yellow and frail. and on top of all that, she was sick. very sick. she had had cancer for sixteen years and it had taken its toll on her body.

to be honest, she wasn’t very beautiful… at least, not if you gave her a brief glance. not if you were making a quick evaluation.

why, if you had happened to live in this land and had happened to know this woman and had happened to be the doctor who gave her a check-up, you would have noticed that besides being small and frail and unattractive, she was also bruised and beat up. especially her knees.

how did such a woman belong in such a land?

she didn’t.

she didn’t belong in that land at all. yes, she lived there, but her heart belonged in a kingdom that was far greater than that petty land. she belonged to a kingdom that was ruled by a mighty King. the mightiest King that ever was. a King she had given her life to as a gift to build His Kingdom. a King she would soon get to meet face to face.

I remember hearing of this woman’s death. you see, I live in the same land that she did. this woman was a dear friend of our family’s. her name was Ruth, and while she was not the most beautiful in the land, she was one of the most beautiful women in the kingdom.

for sixteen years she had battled her cancer. for sixteen years she had prayed and cried out to the King of Kings. for sixteen years, she never turned her back on Him.

she used her last few days to witness to the hospice nurse caring for her. that nurse became a citizen of the kingdom.

and what of those bruises on Ruth’s knees? how did she get them? I cry even as I write this- those bruises were from the hours she spent kneeling in prayer.

not hours praying for herself. hours praying for others. hours praying for me.

looks can be deceiving.

especially in this land in which we live.

I have a childhood memory that frequently haunts my mind.

(side note: isn’t it annoying how we remember some of the oddest, most obscure things about childhood, but seem to forget all the important events? like remembering the scary biker neighbor bringing his pet iguana over for a visit but not remembering the birth of a sibling?)

like I was saying… I have this childhood memory that frequently haunts my mind. years and years ago, I was at AWANA (a Bible group for kids) and at this particular Wednesday night meeting, we had a guest speaker. and the speaker had brought two cakes.

one was beautifully decorated. instantly it made my stomach growl and my eyes bug out. a frozen sea of white, creamy frosting glazed the surface and little candy flowers ornamented this miracle of a cake. the other cake was frosted a nasty color… pea green. and it had no flowers or borders, only a light dusting of bitter coffee grounds.

I saw the speaker take out a knife to cut the cakes, and in that moment I knew what was going to happen. the other little girls watched hungrily as the speaker cut into the beautiful cake. I leaned back and cringed.

as you may have guessed, the beautiful cake was nasty on the inside, and the ugly one was filled with springy, yellow yummy-ness.

I wasn’t surprised. but the whole thing bothered me. and I didn’t know why. so the memory grabbed a magazine, got comfortable in some back corner, and for many years only occasionally strolled to the front of my mind to see if I could make anything of it.

after Ruth died, it hit me. a cake that is ugly on the outside and nice on the inside doesn’t exist. and THAT’S what had been bothering me for so long.

you see, we have become so accustomed to living in this land, that we have forgotten what beauty is. beauty isn’t how much frosting you can pile on a cake or how much make-up you can paint on a face. It isn’t how many sugary flowers you can place on top or how many layers of nice clothes you can wear.

beauty is what radiates from a person. beauty is what makes you forget a person’s outward imperfections and only see the smile in their eyes. it’s the kind tone you hear in their voice. it’s the warmth you feel in their grasp. it’s the wrinkles bearing witness to years of smiling friendliness.

beauty is what you find when you stop searching someone’s face for what this land considers beautiful and allow yourself to see something bigger. beauty is allowing yourself to see the King shining through an individual.

I can honestly say I have never met a person who is pure on the inside and ugly on the outside. ugly cakes with perfect middles just don’t exist.

it’s easy to judge a book by its cover. people in this land do it all the time.

what’s harder and not as normal is to judge a cover by the book.

from the inside looking out.

love you!

muffin