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I’ve always been fascinated by architecture– I just didn’t always know it. Recently, my brother got married on my grandparents’ beautiful property by a lake in Louisiana. In keeping with the rustic, “farm-esque” theme, a few of us gathered goldenrod for the rehearsal dinner while the sun was still hanging high over the endless sea of cotton fields. My grandfather went with us.
Papa has always been a source of endless inspiration for me. Once he sets his mind on something, he only has one mind for it. I remember when I first walked into his office while he was drawing up and designing his dream for Honeybrake Lodge. There were topographical maps hanging on his walls and blueprint sketches scattered all over his desk. It seemed as though he was building a city, and reminded me somewhat of how my art studio looked during the semester of my senior show. Even though he graciously claims no credit of my artistic ability from his side of the family, I smile inside, because I know exactly where it comes from.
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. -Matthew 5:14
After studying abroad, I couldn’t seem to get enough buildings down in my sketchbook. They represented more to me than mere brick and mortar. They created the moods of the places I visited, whether intimate or majestic, and I found that their anthropomorphic qualities allowed them to speak to the memory of a place louder than any passing thought could. There are few better feelings in the world than getting to know a large city like the back of your hand. Something quite big suddenly becomes quite graspable. Kind of like God.
Great cities and the buildings within them have left their mark on history. People live in them and amongst them. I suppose they are the only man-made things that are built big enough to outlast time (although none have). Like Babel, they are often built with high hopes, but stop short of Heaven.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God…
I hear people say all the time, “Give me the country” or “I’d take a farm over the city any day.” As I gathered goldenrods and picked cotton alongside Papa, I realized that I preferred the countryside, as well. In the country, God’s creation brings peace, whereas man’s creation of industry lends itself to chaos. Yet, in all our strivings for peace, I believe that humans were designed for a city.
Throughout the Old Testament, the Jews were constantly longing for “Mt. Zion” or Jerusalem. It took them a while to realize that the city they longed for was a heavenly Jerusalem. The past presidential election taught me a few things about how tightly I hold on to and put my hope in certain things in this world. It taught me that man-made cities will always go awry. However, I still hold on to the notion of cities.
…These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. –Hebrews 11:10-16
My mom was raised on a farm. She jokes that Lot chose to move into the city, while Abraham chose the country. I long for the day when I don’t have to choose, because the peace that I am looking for is not in a city built by human hands.
If the beautification of the world is a mere work of nature, then it must be as simple as the freezing of the world, or the burning up of the world. But if the beatification of the world is not a work of nature but a work of art, then it involves an artist. And here again my contemplation was cloven by the ancient voice which said, ‘I could have told you all this a long time ago. If there is any certain progress it can only be my kind of progress, the progress towards a complete city of virtues and dominations where righteousness and peace contrive to kiss each other. An impersonal force might be leading you to a wilderness of perfect flatness or a peak of perfect height. But only a personal God can possibly be leading you (if, indeed, you are being led) to a city with just streets and architectural proportions, a city in which each of you can contribute exactly the right amount of your own colour to the many-coloured coat of Joseph.’
-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy