“Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the Lord Almighty has spoken.” – Micah 4:4
What do you do when neighbour youth tell you that they’re too scared to go to their local park because of the violence they’ve experienced there? As the Church, what is our role in this?
Like most evenings after dinner, Ruth and I went for a walk around the neighbourhood. We came to Wigle Park, where we happened to run into an Afghani mother and daughter who we recently connected to our community garden- they were beginning to plant. An older Chinese man, who’s in the garden everyday, called for me, “Amigo, amigo!” Wanting to know if this family had officially registered their plot, as the community garden is ironically a highly-contested space for neighbours who want to grow as much food as they can to bring home. Just that week, two of our neighbours’ seedlings had been ripped up by others.
While Ruth stayed with the gardeners, I wandered to the soccer field to talk with the youth. A Syrian boy I know was wearing a ski mask and I asked him why he was wearing it. “It’s my brother’s” a younger Syrian boy said. I began to discuss with them whether they thought wearing a ski mask was wise, or if it made them look like criminals.
Meanwhile, Ruth called for me telling me that a man had fallen down on the path. I ran over and saw a bloodied face and foot. I asked him if he’d like help getting up and he gave me his hands, so I pulled him up, asking him if I could help him get home. “No, I am going to the beer store” he said with a thick Eastern European accent, showing me his bags and taking a couple wobbly steps. He was obviously not sober enough to walk straight but he wouldn’t let me walk him home. Instead, he kept trying to get to the beer store, walking while holding onto the community garden fence.
I was interrupted again as two Syrian brothers were noticing an argument among the older boys and said with serious faces, “We should go.” I turned around, and just like that a fight exploded between 50 Syrian and Black youth. Instantly there were bloodied faces, garbage cans being thrown, belts being used as weapons, and soccer kicks towards bodies that were already on the ground – chaos had erupted. Heading into the centre to yell “break it up!” a young Sudanese boy yelled to me, “Call the police man!” I quickly called, while continuing to yell at the boys to break it up as we were seeing more and more injuries. Another neighbour even came by with his dog yelling, “Big dog! Big dog! Break it up!” Since then, we’ve been told there have been more fights between these groups in other parks, and even bear-mace attacks in Wigle Park on youth.
I just finished reading the recently-released book, “Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling.” In it, the authors call us as the Church to take up the forgotten practices of dwelling with our neighbours, and looking for how Jesus is present, and renewing all things, in our neighbourhoods- and participate with Him. Micah 4:4 illustrates an often neglected image – the nations being included in God’s people and everyone having their own grape vine, their own fig tree (an image of holistic flourishing) and “no one will make them afraid.” As God promises to dwell with us in our neighbourhoods, God invites us to address our neighbours’ fears, and do what we can to prevent others from making them live in fear. While the police might not have the resources to allocate officers in our local park, we as ambassadors of Christ can choose to be present in those places, encouraging an environment of safety and raising up peacemakers. In response, this summer we will incorporate peacemaking in our youth programming.
The following week after dealing with some community garden territory conflict, I saw the Chinese gardener who calls me “Amigo” (who still won’t tell me his name) and he called me over to his garden plot, to give me his tomato seedlings so we could plant them in the neighbours’ plots that were destroyed. Not only did he give them to me, but as he observed my “sub-par” transplanting, he put his hands in the dirt with me and showed me the proper depth, spacing and watering techniques. I realized that if someone hadn’t destroyed the garden plots, we wouldn’t have experienced the generous love from this man. I realized that it’s not in a perfect world where we see Jesus’ hands of renewal, but like we see in Jesus’ crucifixion, it’s right in the middle of our world’s conflict, violence, and ugliness where Jesus wipes our tears and says, “I am making all things new!” Will we be present in those places and join in?
