I find that inspiration often hit you when you least expect it.

Take last Saturday, for example. I was at a Tigers Game, my first of the season. Despite not being a big sports guy, I was enjoying the sun and spending time with my best friend. As we attempted to escape the hot sun in our nosebleed section seats, we approached the top row of shade. I was waiting to catch a picture of the game on Instagram (I know, what a typical millennial). I thought about a selfie with my best friend. I thought about a ballpark picture with the skyline in the foreground. Then something compelled me to turn around.

Looking out over the near east side of Detroit, I saw green trees, I-75, and vague low-lying structures. The only structures that stood out were stately steeples and soaring smokestacks. Each a sign of Detroit’s past, yet each important in Detroit’s future. Maybe not in their physical presence, but in their structural symbolism. Detroit is a predominantly low-rise city outside of the central business district (CBD), with the exception of these spires of sanctuary and sweat. Why do the steeples and smokestacks matter today? I can sum it up in one word: Priorities.

In these structures of praise and power, men thanked the Lord for their blessings on Sundays, while selling their Souls to the capitalist Monday through Friday (and yes, often Saturdays, too). They served their clan, corporation, and congregation, working for a better life, for the greater good. No, this is not some Marxist propaganda! I do, however, have a point to make.

What matters to you? Where do you place your worth, your value, your time, your energy, your praise, your power? These are deeply introspective questions indeed. I feel like in the past, men often felt like they did not have a choice. The steeple and the smokestack were almost one, reaching up to their greater goals and dreams. To sacrifice the one would be to lose your community.To sacrifice the other was to fail to support your clan and corporate conservator.

So today, in the 21st century, how do we rise? We are fortunate to have learned and grown as a society, though we still have battle scars and skeletons to heal and bury. Society is better for some, but much the same or worse for others. On an individual level, how do we balance our steeples and smokestacks?

Whether we go to church, temple, mosque, or mat, we must find ways to create community and stay in touch with our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual beings.While we may not love our job(s), we must work them to pay the bills, and perhaps reach for something more closely aligned with our proposed path. Certainly the world has changed, and thank goodness for that change. One such change is that I feel as men, women, and gender non-conforming individuals, we have more options than steeples and smokestacks. We have a greater duty and opportunity, to continue to figure out and build the world that we desire and believe to be the best world for every creature. It is a daunting, but doable task.

Lest we forget our duty and opportunity, remember we are no longer confined by the world of our forefathers. Let their steeples and smokestacks remind us of the importance of rest and work, of reflection and passion, of dreams and goals. Yet their steeples and smokestacks are no longer the limit of our human capability; that is perhaps the greatest gift we 21st century citizens have been given.

Let Steeples and Smokestacks remind us to rise, but never limit our ability to rise above them.

How will you rise?