Middle School

June 2008

Posted 6.12.08

A City Upon A Hill

It seems to me we are all pilgrims. A pilgrim travels upon a quest for something sacred. A pilgrim is someone who dreams. But a successful pilgrim must know how to read a map.

The other morning in the subway I looked for a while at a movie poster of an enormous green giant with wide shoulders and a thick neck. Sometimes I wonder why we read stories about Harry Potter, why we play video games where we obliterate enemies and why we watch stories on tv. It’s not just to pass the time. Fantasy presents problems we can solve. We want to be strong. We want to be the same size as a hero. We need to believe good triumphs over evil. Otherwise, we lose hope.

So I will tell you about a dream, a fable, which I did not dream alone.
I dreamed of a city founded upon a hill, where the stones and glass shone back upon all who gazed upon it, even those who dwelt there.

And it came to pass that the people who lived in the city upon a hill erected a tower that was splendid and tall.

On each level was a room, filled floor to ceiling with books. Great windows, the exact height of the walls, were cunningly fitted with hinges that allowed the windows to swing open so that visitors could step out onto balconies.

On each balcony telescopes allowed anyone who wished, the chance to see into foreign lands and discern the customs and details of their neighbors. Some turned the optical instruments to the night sky and could make out Jupiter’s children, the moons of Io and Ganymede.

No ticket was required to enter the bottom story of the tower but to ascend to any reasonable height could be achieved only by three kinds of people: children, those who dedicated themselves to study and those who had learned to live wisely.

Few succeeded in getting to the highest views and no one was quite sure how tall the tower was. They said, simply, “it was tall enough.” Even those who really had never taken advantage of the tower were quite proud of it. It was dizzying to look up its glassy walls towards the clouds racing across the sky, which made the tower look as if it were perpetually falling. At dusk as the sun sank into the horizon, the glass blazed with many suns.

Like all cities this one was built not just out of the crumbling medium of stone and cement but also out of time. We can build nothing without using time itself and that means that what time brings to us, time takes away and replaces with something else. So the world that surrounds us is a fragile gift, bequeathed by mothers and fathers and those who preceded them.

It’s not easy to understand but these days when you climb the tower a mist blots out the world that surrounds us. We can no longer see justice, we can no longer see a world without defilement, without war, without anger, without starvation. Concepts and words push away rather than unite.

Someone has lost the key to the tower in our city and we are no longer able to scale its heights. Far and near, people have trouble seeing our city on a hill. It is losing its radiance.

Now is the time we need a prophet to arise. This prophet could be a man, a woman, even a child. This prophet need not say a single word; all they need to do is hold up a small mirror. We need to contemplate what we see reflected. If you can see yourself you can build a city upon a hill. You can overthrow the king, set the prisoners and the judges free, comfort the stricken and the poor, climb to great heights, look where you wish and most importantly understand what you see. Your own name will be forgotten at some point but you will have passed on your home to others, for the sake of animals, oceans, clouds, trees and the sometimes confused and careless tribe called humans. You do not need to be recognized or rewarded to live out noble endeavors. But you need to become a prophet to yourself, a prophet in your own land.

So I hope that in your calmer and more thoughtful moments, that you will dedicate yourselves, each in your unique way, to a pilgrimage that leads all of us back towards a city on a hill, a city that shines as brightly as can be.


June 8, 2008