Today is Wednesday and another Porch Story opp from Kristin Hill Taylor; this time Kristin writes about Ashleigh Slater's new book Braving Sorrow {Loss, Grief, Disappointment} Together. Yesterday I wrote a little about ways cities bring me to life, emphasizing the...
...description of my currently less active {than this one} Preservation Project blog, it's about Neighborhood revitalization, brownfield reclamation, storefront transformation, infrastructure rehabilitation... about surrounding the city with beauty, encouraging nature with window boxes, backyard gardens, kitchen herb gardens, community gardens. Flowers and veggies, beauty and nutrition all over the place! Getting artistic with murals on brick walls and wooden fences. Creating new signage.
The story of God and God's people opens with a garden and ends with the city of the new creation with the river of life flowing through the city streets, with the tree of life laden with fruits for healing of all the nations. A properly tended garden will grow into a city!
I grieve and mourn for population decline, broken infrastructure, overall urban decay {and I don't mean the makeup line}, schools that don't educate, political carelessness, and other serious sorrows of too many cities in the USA and elsewhere. My heart particularly aches for the once splendid city of Detroit, that sprawling urban prairie once known as the Motor City and as Motown. I've blogged about Detroit at least a half dozen times {update: at least 16 times} over the life of this blog; my memories include days at Belle Isle Park and my first ever MLB game at the old Tiger Stadium {8-track tape, that one}. Less than five years ago, Detroit declared bankruptcy, yet love and caring that began quite a while previous to that event are helping revitalize and resurrect Detroit. Enough people cared deeply enough to come together in their sorrow and loss. They held onto hope, did a lot of plain hard work, and helped revive Detroit into a Renaissance City, a place of rebirth, a place to wildly celebrate again!
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thanks for visiting—peace and hope to all of us!