A love note to the 330:

I miss you, Akron.

I miss you and your big city attempts yet small city reality.

I miss your empty sidewalks with the occasional straggler who nods in greeting.

I miss your community that I desire to ravish with love.

I miss your people waiting (desiring?) to be mobilized.

I miss your children with potential far beyond the resources and opportunities they have been given due to systematic injustices.

I miss your missionaries, ready to tell Akron’s story and to work towards Restoration.

I miss your one-way streets, your college, your corner stores, your neighbors.

I left you to “get educated”

(Whatever that means)

And I have learned a lot, I’ll admit.

I’ve learned that I know nothing,

And I think that is one of the best things I could learn.

And I’m trying my hardest to finish this degree

(Seven months left, woo!)

But every day I’m finding that I really just…miss…

You.

Even as I busy myself learning about social stratification and poverty and race relations and socially conscious business models and community organizing and the South Bronx and all of these incredible, applicable knowledge bases ---

(you are still always on my mind.)

So I’m thinking, 330.

I think I want to live with you (for a while, maybe forever?)

Yes, Akron, I know it will be incredibly hard (the summer taught me that).

I know that I am young—that I am naïve and idealistic.

I know I don’t understand much about city life (or anything at all).

But you have the beauty of a sunrise on the countryside and I want to be a part of that story.

(I want to be a part of your story, if you would let me.)

And I know I’ve got a lot to learn,

    but I’ve been in school for sixteen years now and

    I’m ready for 50 more if it means that I get the

    privilege of being your student.

Of learning from you, Akron.

Of fighting alongside you, Akron.

Of dreaming and failing and moving forward and crying and celebrating with you, Akron.

Pray for me please, Akron.

Pray that I would know that this deep yearning in my heart is not mine,

But His.

*

One week ago I sat in a room that smelled like fish and learned how to shoot heroin.

“Where are you all from?” the robust woman in purple inquired as we reached the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center. Desperation throbbed from out of her, desperation and devastation that I could almost tangibly see from her.

“Ohio. We’re here to learn about community development and community organizing,” someone answered. The door to the Harm Reduction Center in Manhattan opened, and we filed in one by one.

The woman’s sharp, parting words to someone beside her rang in my head as the door closed behind me. “Why are they here? Huh? You tell me. They’re only here because they want something and they get something. That’s it.” 

We had entered her pain—not just her pain, but also the pain of all of the participants at the Harm Reduction Center. Here, the Center gives heroin addicts access to clean needles through needle exchanges, reducing the risk HIV transfer through dirty needles. We had entered her pain—we being a bunch of privileged college students—pain that for her might be associated with shame and desperation. 

I remember turning the corner off of Chinatown (with the crowded jewelry shops and the foreign chatter) and being hit with a wall of damp silence. People walked the gray sidewalks in silence. Newspapers blew across the solemn street like tumbleweed. The cold air had decay and desperation clinging to every breath I inhaled.

“You know what? I can’t even think right now about my major or why I’m here or anything that you just asked us. All I can think about is how we turned the corner from the main road and the atmosphere just changed. It was like smothering desperation. Just like that. In like, a split second. I didn’t even know what had happened, but it was there. I can’t wrap my mind around it.” I confessed to the Center presenters after a long pause.

Looking in their eyes I could see that they understood exactly what I was referring to. The heaviness--the weight of the struggles of the Harm Reduction Center participant's brought with them. The weight of addiction, something I had never been in that proximity with before. 

“They’re smart. Drug addicts are really smart,” one presenter said, an ex-addict himself. “This little cotton ball is used to filter the heroin, catching anything that shouldn’t be in there.” 

I remember how he showed us where the best entrance veins are for the heroin, explaining exactly why one vein would be better than the other. I remember him talking about why people turn to drugs, and how many times it is a learned coping strategy. I remember him relaying his journey to the Harm Reduction Center, and being amazed as his story. I remember hearing the Center's door close behind me, feeling like I had been given a small glimpse into someone's day-to-day reality, so different than my own. 

One week ago I sat in a room that smelled like fish and learned how to shoot heroin.

Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center

http://www.leshrc.org/

(;;;Restoration)

To talk of the Destruction without the living reality of the Restoration is missing half of the picture. To talk of the Restoration without the Destruction is to idealize the world in naive ignorance. A balance of focus on the Restoration and Destruction leads to a sound mind who is able to walk with others through darkness with compassion. 

*  *  * 

I want to be involved in the Restoration, my hands daily bleeding from the toil of war--

(my eyes piercing tears of firm love) 

I want my days to be full with laughter, but not the kind that comes without merit;;;

--the kind of laughter that is relished after days of endless heartache-- 

I want to be part of the Restoration, ripping down (socialized) Berlin Walls to once again unite Germany.


I want to be a mediator between the East and the West, creating safe spaces for driven dialogue about the origin of the Walls and the effects of the separation that it brings between my brother and brother. 


I want to urge others on their own individual paths of Restoration--coaching, encouraging, and mentoring them through their journeys.


Most of all, I want to know Restoration deeply-----

(what He smells like and the taste He leaves on my tongue) 

I want to know every corner and reflective facet of Restoration (so I will not get lost in translation)

  I want Restoration.

                    (;;; Restoration)