A little city which reminds one of eastern Germany's past

I road the train through this city on the way back to Munich after a weekend visiting some old friends who lead a small church in Leipzig, eastern Germany. The city is called Goeschwitz (pronounced Go-sh-vits) and has some very ugly communist buildings that likely each hold several thousand people in tiny apartments. I learned from living in a similar area of Leipzig (2001-2002) that privacy was discouraged and often families would share apartments and bathrooms were often in the stairwell for everyone to use instead of having a private bathroom.

For some reason I am fascinated as I look at this fading picture of the second world. That other part of the world where individual achievement was discouraged through a range of economic and domestic spying tactics. I like the hills in the background with outcropping sandstone covered with snow. The rocks never cared who was in power. They have been there far longer than us humans and will be there after we leave most likely. Nature resists alignment with a given political or religious view it seems. It just exists, sometimes inadvertently against, sometimes supporting humans, but usually just very quiet and neutral.

The mountains and rivers seem timeless. One can stare at the Urals and resonate with Tolstoy or stare at the Mediterranean and feel with Homer. Our views of earth and the solar system change from century to century, but they remain what they always were before we came. Perhaps this is a good reminder of who God is, unchanging, but the rocks don't give that answer away. If they know the answer, they are hiding it from us.