Foxes Have Holes...

As our plane descended last week, the South Dakota countryside looked like a white sheet of unlined paper – unscratched and inviting. There were no red lines of taillights; no cars trying to squeeze into a stream of speeding drivers. It was nice. We exited the airport and started to drive. And as we drove, for the first time in six months, my knuckles were not white. In the fading sun the snow on the hills turned pink and grey, and I reflected on the goodness of appreciating a place.

As a native Coloradoan, I can say that we are, at times, state-centric. We’ve joked about a Texan quota, bemoaned the implants from the west coast, and suggested drawing the state line along the Front Range. When we moved to Virginia, I was quick to notice the many (negative) differences: the heat, the rush-hour parking-lot traffic, the abruptness of the people, the shortness of tempers, and the lack of coniferous trees. I often sighed. It was so… East coast.

Then I came to discover that some people in D.C. did not appreciate that I was from Colorado. “It’s so empty,” someone said. “It’s okay if you like to be rugged.” I was told by a colleague about the GAO field office, “Honestly, I don’t know why we have an office way out there.” She emphasized that it was quite far from East-coast civilization, as if Denver were still filled with cowboys and saloons. Another co-worker pointed out that even though “remote,” one could survive because Denver did have a Banana Republic and several J.Crews.

Not long ago, I realized that as a Christian, I am perpetually far from Home. The book of Hebrews reminds us that like Abraham, we are sojourners until Heaven and the Kingdom come. This did not mean I was to be “homeless” and literally living on the street (although it could) but that my eyes were to be fixed on the heavenly, spiritual Kingdom of God. This revelation, and the ensuing struggle to relinquish control of the location of my temporary, earthly “home,” had not yet been tested. And then we moved.

And there I was, racing in my high heels for a spot on the metro. Every day jostling through the Chinatown morning crowds, walking in the shadow of D.C. with the nation’s Capitol building to my right, the Washington Monument somewhere behind me, federal buildings lining the sides of the street. It was here that my assertion was tested, and in the end, it could still stand.

Can you believe it, in its uniqueness, in its differences, even D.C foreshadows heaven. It is not filled with the pine trees of Colorado or the snow-covered hills of South Dakota. But it is its own place, and it is good.

I’m reminded of a statement by C.S. Lewis: “Heaven is that place where all that is and all that happens issues from God’s creative genius. In that sense, it is like earth, except that in our present earth even nature groans, waiting for its deliverance….”(Beyond the Shadowlands)

If we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and our hearts set on returning Home, we are liberated to follow Him… “wherever He goes.”

EC