THE GREAT MYTH
Thirty years gone and now the drug corner is the center of its own culture…the drugs are no longer what the people sell or use, but who they are. We may have begun by fighting a war on drugs, but now we’re beating down those who use them. And along the street, the enemy is everywhere, so that what began as a wrongheaded tactical mission has been transformed into slow-motion civil war…
In the end, we’ll blame them. We always do. And why the hell not? They’ve ignored our warnings and sanctions, they’ve taken our check-day bribe and done precious little with it, they’ve turned our city streets into drug bazaars. Why shouldn’t they take the blame?
If it was us, if it was our lonesome ass shuffling past the corner, we’d get out, wouldn’t we? We’d endure. Succeed. Thrive. No matter what, no matter how, we’d find the exit. If it was our fathers firing dope and our mothers smoking, coke, we’d pull ourselves past it. We’d raise ourselves, discipline ourselves, teach ourselves the essentials of self-denial and delayed gratification that no one in our universe ever demonstrated. And if home was the rear room of some rancid, three-story shooting gallery, we’d rise above that, too. We’d shuffle up the stairs past nodding fiends and sullen dealers, shut the bedroom door, turn off the television, and do our school work. Algebra amid the stench of burning rock; American history between police raids. And if there was no food on the table, we’re certain we could deal with that. We’d lie about our age to cut taters and spill grease and sling fries at the sub shop for five-and-change-an-hour, walking every day past the corner where friends are making our daily wage in ten minutes. No matter. We’d persevere, wouldn’t we? We’d work that job by night and go to class by day, by some miracle squeezing a quality education from the disaster that is the public school system. We’d do all the work, we’d pay whatever the price…We don’t need to buy any status; no we can save every last dollar, or invest it, maybe. And in the end, we know, we’d head off to our college years shining like a new dime, swearing never to set foot in this neighborhood again.
That’s the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments. Parasites, criminals, dope fiends, dope peddlers, whores—when we can ride past them through those neighborhoods, car doors locked, our field of vision cautiously restricted to the road ahead, then the long journey into darkness is underway…
It’s a reckoning of another kind, perhaps, and one that becomes a possibility only through the arrogance and certainty that so easily accompanies a well-planned and well-tended life. We know ourselves, we believe in ourselves; from what we value most, we grant ourselves the illusion that it’s not chance and circumstance, that opportunity itself isn’t the defining issue. We want the high ground; we want our own worth to be acknowledged. Morality, intelligence, values—we want those things measured and counted. We want it to be about Us. Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkly assume that we would be consigned to places like this neighborhood fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now possess. Our parents would still be our parents, our teachers still our teachers, our broker still our broker. Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now…[1]
The myth says that because I came from access to more opportunity, I wouldn’t have made the same choices had I grown up here. And my neighbors can read into the myth too. To them it says that expectations are lowered, that we can’t really anticipate that they will become much of anything, amount to anything significant. This is the real lie: that the kids we live with now are in some insurmountable way disabled from becoming more than what this culture says they are destined to be. It is my responsibility, the responsibility of my team, to love my neighbors as we love each other. To love them and believe in them and show them the hope that breaks through all barriers. Not the hope that with Jesus all problems disappear, but the hope in God that means we have the source of all power, love, security, and truth on our side and the loving knowledge that God’s heart breaks for the things that break our hearts.
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God…in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God…For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8.18-25)
But here’s the real kicker—the real myth is that I am different from my neighbor in some substantial way. The myth says that I am superior, a hero perhaps, because of where I’ve come from. Sure my closet may look different and my skin is a few shades lighter, but past all that, cutting through the insignificant things with which I’ve filled my life, getting deep to the heart—I am the same. We all yearn for satisfaction, loyalty, joy, LOVE. And I trip up everyday on selfish attempts to “do good,” all the while taking stock of who is watching my work. Or I trip up on whatever I currently find appealing to cover up the hurt and pain that I’ve experienced in life. Since coming here I’ve wondered what it is that Jesus offers to a place like this. And here it is—unconditional friendship, true love, loyalty, trust, and freedom from the oppressive cycles and lies my neighbors live with every day. And the hope that there is some place better than the place we live now; we were created for a better place. I need this just as much as the people I see here each day. I am just like my neighbors, I am just like the kids I am assigned to love.
I talk about love, forgiveness, social justice; I rage against American materialism in the name of altruism, but have I even controlled my own heart? The overwhelming majority of time I spend thinking about myself, pleasing myself, reassuring myself, and when I am done there is nothing to spare for the needy. Six billion people live in this world, and I can only muster thoughts for one. Me…
For a moment, sitting there above the city, I imagined life outside narcissism. I wondered how beautiful it might be to think of others as more important than myself. I wondered at how peaceful it might be not to be pestered by the childish voice that wants for pleasure and attention. I wondered what it would be like not to live in a house of mirrors, everywhere I go being reminded of myself …I didn’t like being reminded about how self-absorbed I was. I wanted to be over this, done with this. I didn’t want to live in a broken world or a broken me. I wasn’t trying to weasel out of anything. I just wasn’t in the mood to be on earth that night…I know now, from experience, that the path to joy winds through this dark valley. I think every well-adjusted human being has dealt squarely with his or her own depravity. I realize this sounds very Christian, very fundamentalist and browbeating, but I want to tell you this part of what the Christians are saying is true. I think Jesus feels strongly about communicating the idea of our brokenness, and I think it is worth reflection. Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror.[2]
Like inner-city youth born into destructive cycles on the street, I have been born into a world in which I had no part leading to sin, yet we must live with the consequences or our circumstances. I cannot be exempt from the place into which I was born. As the path to destruction seems inevitable for the neighbors that I love, the path to sin and brokenness is truly inescapable for me. But, in the same breath, I can offer and feel secure in the promise of hope, the guarantee of a better place. I can count on the truth that the price for my brokenness and insufficiency has been paid in full because the God who created me and whose heart breaks with all that breaks my heart loves me so much he would do all that was necessary for my soul to be made whole.
There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing…And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. I imagined him looking down on this earth, half angry because his beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her.[3]
And if I learn and experience nothing else while I am here, then this has been enough. It is enough to know that I can think of the person next to me, across the street, over the phone line, on a different continent and know that we share struggles, we share blame, we share responsibility for the condition of the places we call home. And it is enough to know that we are not in this alone, that every morning God grants new grace and mercy to get us through each day.
…We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us… (Romans 5.4-5)
Simon, David and Edward Burns. The Corner. Broadway Books: New York, 1997. pp 477-479.
Blue Like Jazz p 100.
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