Choice Central: A Place for Choosers: Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous, Episode 1

To celebrate Mother's Day a day early, we all piled in the car and drove the precipitous mountain ridge line of Beverly Hills and Bel-Aire. It made for a fabulous afternoon of gawking and oogling ~ if there'd been much of anything to see! Our first series of streets looked something like this:

Hedges, hedges, hedges! Some were upwards of 40 feet tall! Pristinely manicured, each set of greenery, broken only by a driveway, spoke loudly of the want and need of privacy.

I questioned the word 'need' for most of the afternoon. After all, what benefit is there of such riches, if they sequester one from humanity? Is that the example that Christ gave?

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9

And how did He behave in this newfound state of humanity he found Himself in?

He gave. He gave of Himself in innumerable forms, making Himself accessible to the hordes of people: healthy and lame; educated and not; to those with positions of power and those who we ignored by most; to the least, the poor, He made Himself available.

So I pondered.

And I continued to see:

Gates! Gates upon gates. The gold gilded one really caught my eye, again in terms of Biblical truths.

And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. Revelation 21:21

The beauty that a gilded gate is supposed to portray pales in comparison to that which we will partake in for eternity. Can you imagine? Gold shall be our pavement! To this thought I considered further:

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:36

And, oh! The servants! The laborers! Those whose task it was to keep the manicures manicured. I lost count of how many task-minded folk were doting about the properties, quietly and diligently working.

Well, ok. Most were working.

I'm not so sure about these two guys:

I think they were as keenly interested in the gawkers, as the gawkers were interested in the behind-the-scenes! Or maybe, just maybe, they were running to close the gate . . .hmmm. Might have to rethink my logic on that one! LOL

Yet there was one gate that held our interest in a different sort of way. The gable of the mansion peeked out over the edge of the gate, standing stately, inviting passers-by to look upon it:

And for this home, er, rather, gate(s) we pulled off the road, to partake in a picture op! Surely Aubrey would have it no other way. You see, this home [er, this gate] is the purported home of Nicolas Cage, her favorite actor of all [fifteen years] time!

Photo op it was, then . . .but first, a peek through the tiny opening, hoping to catch a glimpse . . .