the metropolis

They cram you into these little apartments with rent figures that make you laugh, then they pave everything and give you a special place to go find a tree, but don't think it'll feel like an oasis because you just can't get away from that sound of cars going by on the other side of the bushes.

It's alive, though. Can't deny that. The density of humanity means things happen. They don't always go forward (a rocking horse may be constantly in motion but it never gets anywhere) but even under this gently lulling sun and blue sky, things happen. The Spirit moves. People touch. There is this sense of a heavy river of connectedness, if you are lucky in your friends, and a sense of fleetingly tapping into that life flow, if you are not.

If you've never lived in a major metropolis, I'm not quite sure you really can know what it is like. For instance, I'd love to live halfway between my work and my church, but it's just unrealistic. That's the most expensive stretch of real estate in San Diego (plus the worst traffic stretch) so I'd have to go way inland past the 15 to find something in my price range, and THAT would put me away from everything that grounds me in San Diego in terms of friends and activities, plus that's where the heat makes life not worth living, plus when you live in San Diego, it's just wrong to have to drive 35 minutes to the beach. So, I won't be doing that particular move.

In Acts it says they moved to the cities and the cities were changed. Come, O ye young and ye impassioned -- here is soil for your eager lives.