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Heaven is a City

22^nd January

I love living in the country; being so close to nature, seeing the unfolding of the countryside through the seasons, being in a place where so many people know your name is a delight. Even in the depths of winter, when because of the snow you are cut off for several days, it’s a good place to be living.

But I do miss the city and those aspects of urban culture that bust the parochialism of rural life and remind us that the Bible pictures heaven as a city and not as a rural picture postcard scene.

Shirley and I visited Adam our friend and one of the new novitiates within the Community who lives in Kilburn, London, recently.  Walking around in the area I was one of the few white faces and within the space of one hour shopping on Kilburn High Street, I was served by Africans, Asians and Eastern Europeans.  We went for a meal at one of Adam’s favourite haunts and enjoyed the hospitality and banter with the Kosovon restaurant owner.  Bring on diversity, I say.  The cultural mix may bring its tensions but it can also give us a foretaste of heaven where the redeemed of every nation, tribe and ethnic group will be as one.