Ruby is being recycled. A form of urban renewal with a reverse twist, you might say, and not part of any government program.
Back in the 1870s, prospectors began to pan gold in the stream that ran through the Ruby Valley, not far from Nogales. Someone realized the source of the gold was up in the hills. More people came. The town of Ruby was born, barely five miles as the crow flies from the Mexican border.
Eventually, Ruby had a school, a post office, and 2,000 people. The surrounding hills were stripped of trees, which became beams to shore up the mine shafts which now riddled the hills. Ruby also had huge fields of mine tailings that scarred the land, covered vegetation, and polluted the streams.
Virtually every animal that moved was fair game for a gun, either to be used as food, shot as sport, or exterminated as vermin. But the rattlesnakes continued to slither down into the dark, cool mine shafts, always a danger to miners. Eight-inch-long poisonous centipedes crawled into boots at night, and at least one of the thirty species of tarantulas native to Arizona might wander into a baby’s crib. Nobody ever said that Ruby was paradise on earth, but the gold made people stay, at least until the 1940s. Then it died.
Nature is reclaiming Ruby. Bats have moved into the mines, furnishing the rattlesnakes a new source of food. Pack rats live in the school. Termites and carpenter bees work on the wood. Sun, wind, and seasonal desert storms blast down from the sky. Scorpions love living in Ruby. So do the deer, javelina, and coyotes.
Whether it’s Ruby, Arizona, old Babylon on the Euphrates, New York City, or London, each one is the same. Cultures, nations, and cities come and go. None of them endure permanently here on earth.
We Christians need to remember this. It will remind us that there is a certain urgency to life. Life is not to be wasted. We’d better be busy and get on with what we find to do.
Knowing this will help us keep our focus and remind us that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven. “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14).