east, west, home is best

Home again, home again, jiggety ... seems like I said that before. So I have two homes.
Before I left Texas the first time I tried to think of what I would miss. I couldn't think of much. Now I have a different perspective. I miss (most obviously) friends and family and everything connected with them. My huge luxurious house--it got a lot bigger while I was gone. My huge luxurious bathtub. Soft water for washing dishes. Nice friendly wood floors. My huge refrigerator with a freezer that actually freezes what's in it. My dog. 80° humid nights. 90° humid days. Coreopsis beside the road. Flat dried frogs on the pavement. Cattle, especially newborn calves. Being able to hop into my own car at any time and do a few errands all by myself. Clean grocery stores. Wide roads. Grass!!! Space!!! Crickets and other bug noises. Houses. I have not yet seen a house in Jerusalem, only apartment buildings.
I don't miss: Mosquitoes, chiggers, and fire ants. Well, I sort of miss fire ants. They're rather interesting--until they bite you.
But now I'm in Jerusalem. What is it that I like about this pile of rocks, anyway? Maybe just that it's different. But I liked my home in Texas because it's familiar. And this is more familiar now. So maybe it's the variety of people here. And the warm days and cool nights. Maybe it's the simpler life. Simpler so that I can be more focused. But that is also limited and restricted and confining and sometimes boring. Maybe it's because it's the City of the Great King? But the King is not here. "But ye are come to...the heavenly Jerusalem." "Jerusalem which is above is free, the mother of us all." Maybe it's the history connected with it, and everything it symbolizes. "The Lord has chosen Zion, and desired it for his habitation." "For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel..."
Is it still "the holy city?" I think of the Psalmist saying "Walk about Zion,and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks..." and "...if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." I think that he was thinking not only of the physical appearance and location, but of all God's promises regarding it.

From Psalm 89:
3 "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant,..."

29 "His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.

30 If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments;

31 If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments;

32 Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.

33 Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail."

From Ezekiel
19 "And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God."

From Romans
"I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid."
"I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid:"