Friday, July 1, 2011
Fear brings isolation
“At this point I would rather throw them in the Missouri,” he said while leaning forward in his chair. He was obviously very upset. I heard this comment during a discussion about the change inCOMMON’s new community center was going to bring to people living in poverty. This man was wondering whether the community center would bring positive change to the neighborhood or whether it would encourage more destruction. The joke of the whole thing was that the former owners of the community center were the owners of a strip club.
Why are we so motivated by fear? Is it really true that refugees and people living in poverty are responsible and should be blamed? Or is how we relate to one another the cause of destruction?
Until we answer questions about our own fear we will only bring more isolation into our communities.
We all have these feelings of fear that cause us to throw up our hands in frustration, rather than helping people in some way. Until we realize that poverty is a lack of relational networks our solutions only feed the problems and lead to further isolation. The end answer looks more like throwing people in the Missouri river than it does crossing the street and attempting to understand our neighbors.
This is not easy and it may be uncomfortable, especially in an age when our neighbors are from all over the planet. However, we may find that if we are open to understanding our neighbors first, that we gain more than we lose. Often the same understanding that we ourselves demand is not extended. "Love your neighbor as yourself," seems very simple, but is often the most difficult task. Mending broken relationships is so important to bringing our communities out of poverty and despair.
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