Every Street Is Paved With Gold Pdf

[Martha Vanschaick]

Anotherreason for my joy is that all my memories of living in New York are 50 years old and more. I left there in 1973. The children I taught in middle school are now grandparents. But when I walk the streets today I feel like I did in my youth and in my twenties, at least a half-century younger than I am now.

Unlike you, Stuart, I'm not from NY city and have no such fond memories. Mine of a half-century ago are of Philadelphia. But neither of these cities of our youth is what it was then. Both are suffering from political forces that have made a nightmare of living there because of unchecked crime, homelessness, inflation, joblessness, and other ills. I suppose it's not terribly unlike when Holocaust survivors revisit the bones of their childhood haunts. These places may well be revitalized under the reign of the Messiah and the resulting good government, but that is yet to come.

Meanwhile, let me consider a related experience. During the same period we've been considering, Jews have been returning to the land of our ancestors where we ourselves never actually lived, yet those of us who have been immersed in our culture recognize there many familiar features of "home". We also see much that was desolate and still needs to be repaired, restored, rebuilt, etc. We are, of course, working on this while we continue to wait for the messianic revitalization. Indeed, it's good practice for the work we'll need to be doing after all the unpleasantness that precedes the establishment of the kingdom that the Messiah will rule from Jerusalem where I live now. OK, technically I live just outside the city in the Judean hills, but it's close enough that I can go hiking along trails where it is still possible to trek trails that King David undoubtedly knew as a youth. In fact, some of my hiking is alongside the Elah Valley where he killed Goliath of Gath and routed the Philistine invaders.

But we have modern invaders who have not been routed yet, who call themselves "Palestinians". However, that's another story to consider at another time. This and many other ills remain to be dealt with, now and in the future. All of them will require much effort from us, even as HaShem brings about the long-awaited era under the rule of the Messiah. Indeed, for those of us who are discipled by the teachings of the anointed Rav Yeshua ben-Yosef, who experience the down-payment of the kingdom of heaven within us and within like-minded communities, that messianic future begins now. We don't have to wait for the impending resurrection and rapture that will precede the physical establishment of that kingdom. We can serve the King Messiah by aligning our hearts and our actions with his redemptive goals even now, whether we live in the foreign diaspora neighborhoods filled with familiar memories of our childhood or we live in the less-familiar land of our ancient forefathers that was familiar to Rav Yeshua. Personally, I advocate for the "Alteneuland", but even more for the kingdom that is within us in any locale, to make of it the place that is familiar to us and filled with pleasant memories.

I don't know about any of the other readers of this blog, but I sometimes re-read them more than once. This is one of those occasions, and I found myself pondering one of the memes it invoked which is the notion of streets paved with gold in the "new Jerusalem". Now, that notion has been used for a number of metaphorical purposes, often financial ones. But I was considering a different take on the imagery, which is a "reflection" (pun intended) on the renewed Jewish Quarter in the old city of modern Jerusalem. The streets there are paved with what is called "Jerusalem stone", which has a particular coloration that includes yellowish and reddish highlights within its overall beige appearance, such that it appears -- especially under certain sunlit conditions -- rather "golden". Even streets outside the old city that are surfaced with familiar black asphalt present a similar golden appearance because the buildings on either side are "paved" or faced with Jerusalem stone. But the effect is most striking in the old city where the streets themselves are paved with that stone, and automobiles can not access such areas that are designed for foot-traffic only.

I mention this because the writers of the old gospel hymns that cited the prophetic phrasing had no conception of the actual physical imagery that would have been so familiar to the Jewish prophets whose writings they invoked. When these prophets employed that phrasing about streets paved with gold, the image in their minds would have been very much like the appearance of the renewed Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.

Now, I'm not saying that the prophesied era of the "new Jerusalem" is already here and upon us. There are a few significant events that the eschatologically-minded among us would properly remind us are yet to be fulfilled. Rather, I'm pointing out that when these things do occur, they may be expected to resemble some things that we can see already. We might consider these something like a "down-payment" or preview of the glory yet to come.

Similarly, our own pursuit of the consequences of redemption, which consists of self-renewal within the mindset of "the kingdom of heaven", is a down-payment of the glory for which we hope after our resurrection and the physical establishment of the kingdom that Messiah ben-David will rule from physical Jerusalem. If the renewal of the golden streets of Jerusalem is already glorious, already to be enjoyed now even before the ultimate glory that will come, so also may be our personal renewal as new creatures under messianic discipleship.

I should point out, however, that there is a practical side-effect of such renewal. One must also live with, and work around, areas of the city that seem to be continually under construction. So it is also with redemption via discipleship. We must accommodate ourselves to the present reality that one popular Christian biblical teacher of a half-century ago encapsulated in the phrase "Please Be Patient, God Isn't Finished With Me Yet". When the prophets wrote about the new Jerusalem whose streets were to be paved with gold, they made no mention of what it would look like while "still under construction".

Much of modern Israel is still under construction, and the traditional Jewish mitzvah of "tikkun ha'Olam" reminds us that the whole world is still very much in need of repairs. The parallel with modern disciples of haRav Yeshua ben-Yosef, both Jewish and non-Jewish ones, can't be missed.

I started working for the refinery when I was 24 years old, and I worked there for 12 years. First I was a ship agent taking care of cargo and customs paperwork, then I worked as an operator, then in the lab.

Even back then, I was trying to do my part. I drove a hybrid to work, and I was hyper-conscious of my consumerism. But I justified working at the refinery because I had bills. This is what everybody does: try to make the most money for the least amount of time.

I also justified it by the fact that we were fueling America, and we were. At the time, we were importing this heavy, sour crude that came from Venezuela, which you make diesel and jet fuel out of. I had this mindset that there was no alternative, and that the system was too big to fail. This is not the mindset I have today.

At first I was convinced, the LNG must be cleaner. But then I came to learn that fracking, which is how they get most of the gas, is God-awful. Sure, the gas itself might be clean-burning, but the process to get the fuel out of the ground and to that point is just as bad as every other extractive way we've been taking carbon out.

The industry keeps saying LNG is good for jobs: jobs, jobs, jobs! But there are no jobs. There's construction jobs that last for 2 or 3 years, but the governor has to get visas for pipefitters and welders from Mexico to come and build them. Because we don't have enough workers locally.

So I applied to that job, which was for the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and I got it. Then eventually, I started my own non-profit, For a Better Bayou, which is focused on raising awareness about protecting Louisiana's natural resources. Actually, tomorrow will be our one-year birthday.

So a lot of these conversations I have are just listening, hearing where people are coming from. Like that friend I was talking about earlier, we grew up in the same neighborhood. His older brother was one of my best friends, and he has asthma. He moved to Hawaii maybe 10 or 12 years ago. And in Hawaii, he doesn't have asthma. He doesn't have to worry about his asthma pump.

Was that because of this environment? Was it because of the humidity? Or was it because we have massive amounts of pollution being emitted into the atmosphere? I don't know, but I know that he lives in a humid place in Hawaii and doesn't have asthma. And when he comes home, he has to have his asthma pump with him.

Want to see your furry (or non-furry!) friend in HEATED? It might take a little while, but we WILL get to yours eventually! Just send a picture and some words to catcho...@heated.world.

Wow - we need more of these stories to enact action. This help influence the idea that it's not about maintaining a harmful cocktail of being comfortable and hopeless - it's about action, and that enacting change leads us to a better future, and those need to all be driven by optimism and autonomy in working again the grain of the masses.

I\u2019ve been reporting a lot on that decision this week\u2014specifically, trying to untangle some of the most prominent misinformation being spread about it from both Democrats and Republicans, to help you better understand what it really means for the climate, the economy, and energy security.

I\u2019ll have a newsletter laying all that out for you on Thursday. But in the meantime, I wanted to share with you an interview I did with James Hiatt, a third-generation former oil worker from Louisiana who has been campaigning against the LNG build-out for the last two years, most recently at his non-profit, Better Bayou.

His personal story serves as a powerful debunking of fossil fuel industry narratives about the benefits of LNG in Louisiana. Here it is, told in his own words.

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