It’s a well-known fact that I love the city. And when
I say “love,” I mean wholeheartedly adore. But the truth is, I’ve found that my
love for the city has changed and deepened over the past few years.
I grew up outside of Sacramento, but I distinctly remember
periodic visits to the city with my family. My folks always included some sort
of “cultural experience” in our 24-48 hour family vacations. And most of these experiences highlighted
unique parts of an urban center—museums, symphony concerts, Broadway shows,
independent movies, unique restaurants, or city parks. I understood the city to
be a place of sophistication.
Periodically, we’d go to the city for service projects.
Whether it was sorting clothes for the poor or making sandwiches for a soup
kitchen, I was exposed to the rougher side of the city. I saw people who
couldn’t afford the unique restaurants, but instead ate the sandwiches that I
made. I remember seeing those weird stores that were for “adults only” and had
women’s silhouettes on the windows and wondering why I didn’t feel good about
that part of town. I’d hear stories of drugs and prostitution, and it seemed
like a different world. I started to understand the city to be a place of
brokenness.
By the end of high school, I started to recognize the
complexity of the city, and I found it invigorating and challenging. I started
making monthly trips to Sacramento for times of contemplation and reflection.
I’d visit a cathedral to sit and be still, wander to a local coffee shop and
sit in Cesar Chavez park. It was a fairly busy park but there were plenty of shady
people hanging out. I distinctly remember a moment where I felt somewhat
uncomfortable in the park, and I thought to myself, “This is what many women
experience throughout the world.” It was a moment where my privileged and
somewhat “sheltered” self realized a world and experience beyond my own. I
began to see the city as place of exposure and challenge.
Toward the end of college, I moved to Chicago for an urban studies
program. I interned at a social service organization on the Westside (a rough
area, to say the least), enjoyed the local bars and restaurants, mastered
public transportation, and experienced racial tensions and structural
injustice. I wrestled with the tension of living in a place where
sophistication, brokenness, and injustice could coexist—and one’s experience of
these elements could almost be determined by the block on which you lived.
These tensions are what keep me in the city. I’ll be the
first to admit that I have a privileged experience of the city. Usually I can
choose whether or not to enter into the brokenness that persists. But the city
does not let me forget these tensions. Simply walking through my neighborhood reminds me of that every day and beckons me to
live out reconciliation and redemption in the midst of the complexity. And that’s
one of the many reasons I want to have a family in the city. I want our
children to learn from people’s diverse experiences and backgrounds, to grow up
in complex environments, and to catch a vision for how they can live out the
Kingdom. And so that’s why we stay.
