First City

The white bright highlights on the crests
Of waves wandering to the shoreline
Below the brown wooden docks
Lined with clean sails and knotted ropes,
Down under the shadows of lined houses with
Beams holding up red and blue thatched roofs
Covering families and businesses and inns
Hiding in the beautiful day of such a grand
New and wonderful city of a town.
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With the release of every chapter of Below the Land, I will be posting a companion poem.  This is the poem related to Chapter 8.

Research, Pt. 3: Suburbanism Can Wait

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So apparently H.G. Wells spent his career writing about utopias.

For example, in The Time Machine he invented a future world in which everything was perfect. Every social or political problem had been resolved, and the beings of the world live in harmony. Or in War of the Worlds he considered a sort of dystopia, in which a world is thrown into utter chaos, in this case by a strong outside force that wishes to use imperialism to their own advantage.

He also sometimes presented anti-utopia, which looks at the world fragmented, questioning, revealing contradictions. Instead of examining a grand whole utopia or dystopia, he questioned the details of life as we know it, even the details of perfection or dis-perfection.

At least, that's what I got out of the three articles I looked at. And it got me thinking about my next book.

It's a story about cities and hearts, or something like that. Places where everything can be perfect, or dis-perfect, or if we want answers and solutions to our deepest questions, broken.

I do think perfection is good. It would be very good. And to change subjects a bit, why are there so few good guys anymore who are really good? I mean like really, really good. Like sure, they have their problems, but they never let that get in the way of doing the right thing. Maybe we need a good hero's journey. Maybe the hero of the story needs to go outside, face some bad guys who are really bad, and eventually save the day by his persistence. Maybe. We'll see what happens.

And until we meet again...(and during and afterwards)...keep on thinking free!

Cities

"Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man." --Hesiod

"But they who give straight judgements to strangers and to those of the land and do not transgress what is just, for them the city flourishes and its people prosper." --Hesiod

"This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are." --Plato

"A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one." --Aristotle

"Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large." --Plutarch

"I called to my lovers, but they deceived me;
My priests and my elders perished in the city
While they sought food to restore their strength themselves.
See, O Yahweh, for I am in distress;
My spirit is greatly troubled;
My heart is overturned within me,
For I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword slays;
In the house it is like death."
--Lamentations 1:19-20


PSALM 125

Those who trust in Yahweh
Are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
So Yahweh surrounds His people
From this time forth and forever.
For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest upon the land of the righteous,
So that the righteous will not put forth their hands to do wrong.

Do good, O Yahweh, to those who are good
And to those who are upright in their hearts.
But as for those who turn aside to their crooked ways,
Yahweh will lead them away with the doers of iniquity.
Peace be upon Israel.


PSALM 127

Unless Yahweh builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless Yahweh guards the city,
The watchman keeps awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
To retire late,
To eat the bread of painful labors;
For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.

Behold, children are a gift of Yahweh,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.


PSALM 130

Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Yahweh.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.
If You, Yah, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.

I wait for Yahweh, my soul does wait,
And in His word do I hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
More than the watchmen for the morning;
Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in Yahweh;
For with Yahweh there is lovingkindness,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
8 And He will redeem Israel
From all his iniquities.