i will grow you & feed you there.: heart for the city

chicago, illinois

the diversity
the towering skyscrapers
the crowds
the smells
the cars rushing by
the culture
the people with their noses in maps
the constant change
so much to do & see
halting for a tourist who suddenly stopped to take a picture
seeing people dragging luggage
observing groups protesting or promoting their cause
feeling so alone in the sea of faces (loads of people unlike you)
feeling so alive in the hustle & bustle (loads of people like you)

indianapolis, indiana

feeling overwhelmed by the amount of people touching you
feeling deep despair for those on the ground with a cup of clinging change
discovering markets where you can buy everything under the sun
tapping your foot to street musicians who litter the city & fill it with eclectic sounds

it's where history is made & preserved
it's where the new & old collide
it's where transportation ranges from bicycles & one's own feet to double deckers & taxis
it's where statues immortalized heroes, leaders, rebels, & artists
it's where governments meet, conferences are had, concerts, sporting events, parades, all commence

prague, czech republic

it's the contrast of cities which compels me to love them. the idea you can see a man in a tux hop out of a sports car onto a sidewalk where a man is sleeping on a cardboard bed. the idea you can walk by a beautifully laid out park only to be bombarded by run down housing complexes. the idea that you can hear more than 3 languages being yelled, whispered, or mumbled on one bus. the idea that you can see some of the most well known art in a glamorous gallery only to walk out the door to find a street artist creating sand art on the ground. the idea that you can walk down one street & smell freshly baked bread, newly roasted coffee, dog poo & vomit. the idea that you can imagine other worlds as you enter into the cinema or theatre only to be greeted with the often rude reality as you walk out the door. the fact that some days, i absolutely love living in a city with all the light & life it brings but others i hate the darkness & death that is present.

as i live in the city of dublin, (having grow up on 86 acres of mostly cornfields & ponds) it keeps taking pieces of my heart. it captures my thoughts, my imagination, & my soul. all its character, all its detail, all its history, all its complexities suck me in to this vortex of wonder.

new york city, new york

timothy keller has a lot to say about cities

check out this video & check out this website
WATCH THIS ONE on god's global urban mission. 300 years ago, less than 3% of people lived in cities, now, more than half the world lives in a city.

here's a link to christianity today's website on urban ministry.
here's an article titled, "why cities feel glorious."

quotes about the city

washington, d.c.

"i love new york, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because i belong to it." -truman capote
"what strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need to do is stroll about with our eyes open. life swarms with innocent monsters." -charles baudelaire
"for those who are lost, there will always be cities that feel like home." -simon van booy
"walkers are 'practitioners of the city' for the city is made to be walked. a city is a language, a repository of possibilities, & walking is the act of speaking that language, of selecting from those possibilities. just as language limits what can be said, architecture limits where one can walk, but the walker invents other ways to go." -rebecca solnit

london, england
"with cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. cities, like dreams, are made of desires & fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, & everything conceals something else." -italo calvino
"the city gives even to children a sophisticated look that baffles the casual psychologist." honore willsie morrow
"the city blew the windows of my brain wide open. but being in a place so bright, fast & brillant made you vertiginous with possibility: it didn't necessarily help you grasp those possibilities. i still had no idea what i was going to do. i felt directionless & lost in the crowd. i couldn't yet see how the city worked, but i began to find out." -hanif kureishi

san sebastian, spain
"it was a cruel city, but it was a lovely one; a savage city, yet it had such tenderness; a bitter, harsh, & violent catacatacomb of stone & steel & tunneled rock, slashed savagely with light & roaring, fighting a constant ceaseless warfare of men & of machinery; & yet it was so sweetly & so delicately pulsed, as full of warmth, of passion & of love, as it was full of hate." -thomas wolfe
"a city isn't so unlike a person. they both have the marks to show they have many stories to tell. they see many faces. they tear things down & make new again." -rasmenia massoud
"this city is what it is because our citizens are what they are." -plato

edinburgh, scotland
"a city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a questions, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to & familiar ones to listen to again." -margaret mead
"a great city tends to spread out & lay bare to the public view in a massive manner all the characters & traits which are oridinarily obscured & suppressed in small communities. the city, in short, shows the good & evil in human nature in excess. it is in fact, more than any other which justifies the view that would make of the city a laboratory or clinic in which human nature & social processes may be most conveniently & profitably studied." -robert e. park
"i'm in love with cities i've never been to & people i've never met." -john green

dublin, ireland

"the city, as one finds it in history, is the point of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a community. it is the place where the diffused rays of many separate beams of life fall into focus, with gains in both social effectiveness and significance. the city is the form and symbol of an integrated social relationship: it is the seat of the temple, the market, the hall of justice, the academy of learning. here in the city the goods of civilization are multiplied and manifolded; here is where human experience is transformed into viable signs, symbols, patterns of conduct, systems of order. here is where the issues of civilization are focused: here, too, ritual passes on occasion into the active drama of a fully differentiated and self-conscious society." -lewis mumford