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56 Ur: What Signs & Wonders Driving down an ugly stretch of road through dissolute Florida towns, we passed church marquees with their flat-footed attempts at levity: What’s missing from C-H__C-H? U-R. I read this at first as Ur, the ancient city southeast of Babylon, ten miles from the Euphrates, the fickle river that changed its course and wandered away from Ur, as Abraham did, leaving a mound of rubble in a desert that once was a city in a fertile land. Then we saw a large, abandoned building with a sign informing the rushing traffic: “The Center of Hope is Permanently closed.” In the tombs of Ur some strangers found, among the gold, tablets made of clay boasting of the eternal temples of dead kings. But of course temples are temporary by nature. In this world, even gods are temporary. So is doubt and faith. This morning when I walked past a store sign telling me, “We are close,” I told myself that the Center of Hope is Permanently close, and for a few blocks I didn’t believe it and for a few blocks I did. ...

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