Around the turn of the twentieth century, there was a movement in the western world to beautify urban places. Non-residents were finding the economic means to become tourists, and cities took advantage of this by creating civic centers and other things which made the city aesthetically pleasing. In 1900, Harrisburg was the first city of the movement to coin the term "city beautiful."
My maternal grandmother grew up somewhere between State Street and Market Street in a neighborhood often referred to as "The Hill" or "Allison Hill." In her day, this was the pulse of the Burg. The real part of town. The developing world of "City Beautiful."
Today I thought it would be cool to bike past Grandma's old church and then ride by her old residence. One thing about The Hill has lasted: life. The neighborhood comes alive in the early evening and stays alive throughout the night. Single mothers watch cars go by from their porches. Shop owners come out on the stoop to have a smoke with a friend.
But today, Allison Hill is not considered to be City Beautiful. Quite the opposite, actually. Many refer to the place, with all of the recent foreclosures and declining economic conditions, as a ghetto. And the racial demographic is profoundly darker than in my grandma's day.
An era of "White Flight" struck in the late 60's and 70's. Hurricane Agnes attacked, lifting the mighty Susquehanna up from its trench, and many people with the privilege to leave left (white people). The nuclear emissions of the Three Mile Island incident about 7 years later only complicated matters further.
As I bike through The Hill today, I get stares and glares. I attempt gestures of greeting and I am repaid with a cold shoulder. A dozen people crowded the porch of my grandma's old next-door neighbor, but they all looked at me like I was a foreigner.
Realizing that I just didn't fit, I turned around to bike to Midtown. There, my friend Josh had put together one of many art shows which are held in the city every third Friday of the month. Sipping wine and tasting fruits, white people browsed the art on the walls as potential consumers. The pieces were going for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. I felt more comfortable in this place. These were my people. Civilized art admirers, avid readers. But the culture was more forced. After all, "3rd in the Burg" is a planned event. People travel from their homes to view the galleries. The Hill has a natural culture in the sense that its residents don't get to make many decisions. They are born into a situation which requires them to be where they are, and they act naturally in that place. They don't go out into public because it's a certain day of the month. They shoot the breeze where they live because that is where they live.
In the beginning of time, God made a messy world. Adam probably took hundreds of years to name all of the animals, especially when one considers all which must be extinct at this point. God created a very diverse world: birds and fish, plants and sea, male and female. And it was very good. Until Adam and Eve weren't living in it. That's when it wasn't very good.
I saw a glimpse of the messy world when I began to bike away from the art galleries. A black man sitting on a stoop called out to me, asking for a quarter so he could get a beer. I had nothing at the time, so I turned around to personally inform him of the free wines at the art galleries.
The man kindly let me know that he didn't want to "go in and disturb things." He then proceeded to tell me he always kept watch over the street to make sure people were getting along okay and loving each other. He told me that God's love is pure and that people should forget about bombs and do something good. We talked for quite some time, mostly on the topic of being good to our neighbors and digging our own soil, and we occasionally had a few laughs as we condemned the selfish worldview of the people who work in the capitol building a few blocks away. He told me he'd be around there every other night, and I told him I'd return to visit again.
We have to get back to the garden. We have to get dirty and be among the mess of creation. I am trying to be as non-dualist as possible when I say that not only should the white midtown crowd venture uphill, but those on the hill should also be hasty to welcome their guests. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of hospitable Allisonians and plenty of socio-economically-minded downtownians, but it certainly doesn't look at all like the diverse mess God made. We act as if the fall has not been lifted, as if we have been expelled from the garden and God has never invited us back. Or perhaps some of us see that God is welcoming us back to the rubble, and they realize that the experiences we have inside the mess leave us longing for more and more of the mess. Today, I didn't want to leave this man whom I talked with for so long.
We who deliberately enter the world of the first City Beautiful make a conscious decision to be present with our neighbors. Sometimes, our neighbors are other students with wealthy parents. Other times, our neighbors have no parents, three surgeries to pay for, and a drinking addiction which numbs their pain (Proverbs 31:6-7). We rejoice when they prevail and mourn when they suffer. Or maybe we find common humanity in our laughter. Whatever the circumstances and specifics of our practice, we are sharing this place and admiring its grossly messy beauty.
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