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My heart is heavy
By Jeremy | May 11, 2007
I drove to Baltimore this morning before visiting Virginia's Nissan Pavilion for tomorrow's Battle Cry event, and asked Matt Stevens to take me to the so-called Blue Light Districts, high crime areas so named because of the ubiquitous presence of police cameras marked by flickering blue lights. (Take a virtual tour here.) For three-plus hours we drove around the City of Baltimore's poorest neighborhoods, and I'm overwhelmed by what I saw.
My city has been gentrifying for so long that I had almost forgotten what it's like to drive past rows and rows of boarded up buildings and abandoned playgrounds and blighted block after blighted blocks. The broken windows. The lack of windows. The trash. The burned out shells. The frail frames of heroine addicts masked by hollow cheekbones and glassy eyes. They're familiar sights, all, but in a foggy haze of past recollections. They're not the current reality for much of New York City, especially Lower Manhattan.
But here in Baltimore, they are the markers of a very present reality. Driving through, it became self evident why this city has the highest rates of homicide and methodone usage in the country; why gritty crime dramas like "Homicide" and "The Wire" revolve around these neighborhoods; and why the city's police commissioner and mayor have once again urged faith leaders to pray for them and the city the past two months.
The most surreal part of the drive was having to remind myself over and over that this is not some war ravaged metropolis overseas. The buildings were not firebombed by fighter pilots or suicidal terrorists. This is not Baghdad or Mogadishu or Kabul. This is Baltimore, in the good ole US of A, and many of the poorest neighborhoods are within blocks of the city's centers of power: its political, academic, commercial, and cultural districts. Not miles away. Not townships removed. But literally walking distance.
So close, yet so far.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.- Isaiah 58:12
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May 12th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Great blog JD. You nailed it – we gots issues here in our “Christian Nation.” I am really excited about the convergence I see happening at the National level…now if only we can drill it all down to the regional, Metro, inner-city, neighborhood, and block levels. That would be impact!