City Uprising Pt. 1
July 15th 2009 -
Uprising? That is a very unique word. According to the dictionary app on my computer, the word “uprising” means rise to a standing or elevated position. What would raise or elevate the city of Baltimore to a higher level of national or international recognition?
Thinking?
Here are two very obvious ways to “rise or elevate” our great city in renown.
Baltimore could focus on being totally evil. Think about it. Who are some of the most common household names? Hitler, Bin Laden, Stalin, McVeigh, Mussolini, Manson, Cruella deVille, Pol Pot, Joker, Wicked Witch of the West, Darth Vader, etc… The world remembers evil. You can make statistics say a lot of different things, so I don’t rely on them totally. But right now Baltimore is known for crime, violence, drugs, political corruption, poor education, and a high rate of HIV and Aids. That’s just naming a few!
Or
Baltimore could focus on being really compassionate/good. The flip side to being really evil is obviously good. Now who comes to mind? Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Firemen of 911, Moses, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Lincoln, St. Augustine, John Hopkins, George Washington, Dalai Lama, Wilberforce, etc… Think about these names. What if Baltimore focused on these great characters of history and their area of passion as a total city? We would see the sick cared for, the walls between us torn down, selfishness become history, and hatred replaced with love.
That would be a “City Uprising.” There’s a little story about a great city in the Jewish Scriptures and Old Testament in the Christian Bible. The story is about a city that, in the eyes of God, was a great city of 120,000 people. The story was about God’s compassionate heart towards them. They were a hurting and evil city, but God could see their potential. God can also see the potential of Baltimore. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that God thinks that Baltimore is a great city.
These next two week’s worth of blogs are going to be about us as a city, rising to the nickname of “great” and understanding how much God loves this city (including all of its 600,000 plus people).