Hajja Salesjana

Photo by Todd Trapani - Unsplash.com and seated . . . with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). They lived “in Christ.” Yet they also lived “at Philippi.” Life in Christ did not remove them from their city, but sent them into it: alert to its dangers (Philippians 3:2), awake to its neighbors (Philippians 4:5), alive to its God-given pleasures (Philippians 4:8), and especially aware of its fellow Christ-worshipers (Philippians 2:1–2). In other words, spiritual life there shaped and animated physical life here. Their identity in Christ took form in the streets and stores, homes and halls, highways and byways of Philippi. In creation, God determined that Philippi would be their dwelling place; in redemption, he filled Philippi with living, local images of his Son. Living where they were, then, was a matter not only of creational necessity, but of redemptive mission. Redeemed humans live not only in Christ, but in Christ at Chicago, Glasgow, Nairobi, St. Petersburg, Seoul. Redemption, like creation, happens here. Children and Poets G.K. Chesterton, writing just after the invention of the car, and just before the appearance of the screen, observed, “It is inspiring without doubt to whizz in a motor- car round the earth, to feel Arabia as a whirl of sand or China as a flash of rice-fields. But Arabia is not a whirl of sand and China is not a flash of rice-fields. They are ancient civilizations with strange virtues buried like treasures. If we wish to understand them it must not be as tourists or inquirers, it must be with the loyalty of children and the great patience of poets.” (Heretics, 51–52) Today, of course, we whizz past not only foreign places in our cars, but local places on our screens. But if we wish to start living where we are — to understand and not just inhabit our homes — we too will need something of the loyalty of children and the great patience of poets. Children are instinctively loyal: dad doesn’t need to be awesome; he just needs to be theirs. Poets are relentlessly attentive: they see marvels in the mundane. Most of us, of course, are no longer children and not yet poets. But with God’s help, we can begin cultivating the same loyal, attentive presence to the ordinary people and places all around us. And if we do, we may discover just how wild and wonderful here really is. Where the Wonders Are “O Lord, how manifold are your works!” (Psalm 104:24), sings one of Scripture’s most childlike poets, millennia before cars 14 Lulju-Settembru 2023 hajja