This place and its people are wild, alive—owned and loved by God Himself. When I fully digest this, my love for this city and my understanding of who God is intensifies and spills over into love and hope for those nearest me.
Where there are sirens, there are also church bells.
Kathryn Streeter is a special contributor and columnnist for her local paper, author of regular articles and quarterlies, and is working on Young Mom, a book persuading families to reconsider the good life of city neighbourhoods. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
50 things I love about city life in Washington, D.C.
By Kathryn Streeter
35.1
A passion pervades this city. Sirens sounding remind me of the pain. Church bells ring out in answer—a song of hope. From grand columns and architecture, the meticulous detail of America's most precious man-made structures testifies to man's passion to create something beautiful; it reflects minds filled with creativity and a longing for permanence.
Alexandra and Max Streeter, on Theodore Roosevelt Island (#30) with the spires of Georgetown (#15) in the background.
The intricate design of the city's flowering trees speaks of God's attention and intense delight and matches the marvels of the constructed beauty for which the city is known. Washington, D.C.—both place and people—is wild, alive, and colorful, sparking electricity, and I'm reminded that this 'fullness' around me is inhabited, owned, and loved by God Himself. When I fully digest this, my love for this city and my understanding of who God is intensifies and spills over into love and hope for those nearest me, my husband, and our children. I'm encouraged to bravely challenge both my husband and growing children to charge ahead with passion and energy. Engaging this culture is riddled with pain and disappointment, but where there are sirens, there are also church bells ringing with hope.
The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein
—Psalm 24:1 (ESV)
Kathryn Streeter
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For this reason it is worthwhile to reflect on the things we love: as we consider our loves, we come to know ourselves. It is out of our loves, our commitments, that our identity, our character, grows. It is out of loves, our commitments, that our beliefs, our convictions grow. It is in shared loves, shared commitments, that we discover our truest friends and most enduring communities.
As our authors in this issue of Comment consider certain parts of their lives—the cities in which they live, the spheres of life in which they work—and the things they love in those parts, we hope that you will be drawn to consider the things you love, and that as you think about these things you will join us in asking the big questions about love and our selves. What is love? What do we love? What do our loves make of us? We also hope—and here I wax Augustinian—that as we consider the things we do love, that we will become more deeply aware of the things that we ought to love.
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