Name-Calling

In the creation story there is a pattern in which God names things. In doing so God draws them into being. In Genesis 1 God names the light ‘Day’, and the darkness ‘Night’, God names the dome over the earth ‘Sky’, the dry land ‘Earth’ and the waters ‘Seas’ and so on. God names each of these things with individual names, and then he names them again – he calls them ‘Good’.

After creating Adam, God invites Adam to follow this pattern. In Genesis 2: 19-20 God brings to Adam the animals ‘to see what he would name them’ and then ‘whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.’ Whatever Adam named things, that was its name. Bad luck for the hippopotamus.

Names are incredibly important to us, new parents spend ages thinking of what they can name their child, believing that in some way, this name will influence their future and their very being. We name and re-name things all the time, its helps us to understand who and what we are - and our cities are not immune to this.

Flint, the city in Michigan where we have been spending time this week is often given names. I mentioned that it is known to some as the most violent or most dangerous city in America (actually since February this name is now passed to Oakland in California… lucky for them). Other names given to Flint have included the most Illiterate City, or the city with the highest levels of arson. Detroit where we have spent the last couple of days has also earned these titles, and a few others; in 2013 it was named the most miserable city in America.

These names stay with us, and as we are called, so we become. For this reason it is so important for the Church to name hope in our cities. One of the episcopal churches we visited in one of Detroit’s poorest neighbourhoods is called ‘Spirit of Hope’. From this church and its with a small but growing congregation, an urban garden is tendered. From here the church with only a handful of volunteers and much less cash manages to give away six tons of food and 20,000 meals every year. In the spirit of the Heidelberg project members of the church are decorating old church pews and hymn boards with messages of hope for their community, placing them in public places. As part of this they are praying for their community and telling them about resurrection for all – naming hope for the here-and-now. This kind of hope whispers resurrection, whispers that a city is not dead in a tomb, Christ is risen for the all of us, and all of us are a part of sharing a hope filled resurrection life. Resurrection isn’t just for the shining cities and booming financial districts and fashion capitals, resurrection is for the derelict, the forgotten, the places that have been named the bad names.

One of my friends, Andrew, is working on a performance project with the Flint Youth Theatre. Its called “Flint, the most _________ city in America”, part of the project is allowing the community to fill in the blanks, to make their own name for themselves, based on the positive that they bring and not simply acknowledging the negative that they are labeled with. We need to stop 'name-calling' in the negative and start 'name-calling' our cities in the positive, we need to be honest about our problems but we also need to speak that truth in love and in the light of resurrection hope. So we are named so we create who and what we are.

Born makers

We are spending a few days in Detroit before driving to New York where we will meet more church and community workers involved in regeneration work in a different urban context. Detroit is in many ways a City which suffers from similar problems as Flint, but on a macro scale.

On our way here I was struck by the new Chrysler advertising campaign on the skyscraper between the two cities, visible from the freeway. The Chrysler building says ‘We are born makers’. In many ways there is a cruel irony about this – yes we are all makers but in cities like Flint and Detroit the opportunity to make, has been taken away from many people, the people in this tower might feel like makers... but there are people who down the road are surrounded by dereliction and destruction.

Yet its also a reminder that we are all makers, that for the residents of these cities, as much as they may feel like a few big factories would solve their problems, we all have an ability to create and make for ourselves.

I came across 1 Chronicles 22:15-16, where David commissions the building of the temple for the glory of the Lord. He says, 'Moreover, there are many workmen with you, stonecutters and masons of stone and carpenters, and all men who are skillful in every kind of work. "Of the gold, the silver and the bronze and the iron there is no limit. Arise and work, and may the LORD be with you."' This is a reminder of the potential that all of us have to create with the different skills we have and to work for the good for the city and for the glory of God. We all have skills, there is so much purpose to be found, but without finding this and without the opportunity to make and create, we are robbed of something which makes us human. 

It does not feel this simple for many of the people of these cities, to just 'go and create'. We are all born makers, but we are not all born equal. For some there are creative enterprises all over Detroit, people moving from Brooklyn to set up design companies, distilleries, bakeries, potteries, printers etc. as well as social enterprises. For others, particularly some of the poorer black communities who make up the majority of these cities, this can feel way out of reach. What is clear to me is that it is sometimes not enough that we are makers, we need to help each other to realise this economically, investing in each other, working collaboratively in a way that all thrive, not only the few. We have to make real the equality that we say we believe in.

In the Detroit Institute of Art there is a mural by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Done in the 1930s it shows the car industry that was booming in Detroit (and indeed Flint). Rivera paints hundreds and thousands of workers, depicting the potential and the glory of hard work of people of all races, in the field as well as in the factory. But exploring the mural further, we see that Rivera also points at the way in which the few can exploit this, putting others in danger. His message not only to Detroit, but to a capitalist world, is that when the workers thrive, all thrive, but where they are exploited, all of humanity suffers. We are all born makers, the question is how happy are we with the world we are making? Is everyone free to make and create? Or just some of us? Our cities seem to magnify the creative industry, for better or worse, so what is our response when we really listen to it?

Paint Our Town Blue

Joining Andrew Morton this week at his playwriting course at the University of Michigan, I was able to sit in on a play they were writing collaboratively on the issue of child abuse. The group had had professionals come in from the local children’s home and had thought and reflected on the issue of child abuse in the state of Michigan. In the USA like in the UK, when budgets are cut, mental health support is often one of the first things to go, and this brings knock-on effects for everyone. Poverty too brings stress and anger for many, some turn to drug use – of course abuse can happen anywhere - but all these things can contribute to increased instances of abuse. In the state of Michigan, child abuse has been called a public health epidemic. Genesee County had nearly 2,000 child abuse victims in 2013. Of those victims, 1,050 were under the age of 5. Of those, 35 were reported as severely beaten. 63 children died last year in Michigan from abuse, 18 of these in Flint’s county of Genesse – all of these were under 2 and died of abuse and/or neglect.

April is Child Abuse Awareness Month and blue pinwheels can be seen in public areas to raise awareness and money for those working with victims and in methods of prevention. The campaign is called Paint Our Town Blue. The playwriting course has its own pinwheel garden outside the university. Such acts often feel very small, but they are a step towards raising awareness of these issues. The hope is that through this, work can continue in prevention of abuse by tackling some of the other issues the local area faces, as well as supporting the victims.

Embers

This week we work up to the smell of burnt plastic. The local recycling plant had burnt down in the night. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but speaking to come people locally arson could have been a possibility. Arson is not the problem that is had been in Flint, but with over 25% of Flints buildings derelict and abandoned, it had been an issue. 1631 were reported at vacant homes and buildings in the city from 2008-2012. Half of the fires are believed to be caused by children under 18 years old, some of these seeking a thrill, others out of anger, revenge or metal health issues, others because they have felt frustrated, surrounded by abandoned, dirty and derelict buildings.

Most residents are desperate about the situation. The attacks cost the city millions in fire-fighting and legal investigations, and now the city cannot afford to employ its own investigators of these fires, insurance companies are sending their own investigators in. There are reports that such investigations have found an arson for profit group had also been operating in Flint, with people unable to sell their houses, desperate to get money from somewhere in order to leave the city, this group has since been arrested.

In one street a house that had been recently renovated burn down after catching alight from a delict house that was set on fire next door. This house had been a symbol of hope for many in the community; a neighbour explained how others from the neighbourhood had come out to watch it, some of whom had been involved in its renovation. Many stood there helpless, in tears. A friend of mine who witnessed this decided to work with students at the university to give voice to the anger pain and frustration that the community were feeling through a verbatim theatre project, Embers. Playwright Andrew Morton worked with students to gather thoughts and feelings of local residents. The performance took place on the street where one of the houses had been destroyed and local residents came to watch it, sharing in their own stories and the hope they felt for the future of the city. You can find out more about the project here (Chapter 3).

Still others are rebuilding and renovating buildings in Flint, and whilst some people are still moving out, some are moving in. The landbank is a governmental organisation is currently in a process of doing this as part of their Neighbourhood Stabilisation Program.

Garden of love

Spending time with Bobbie at Hope4Flint reminded me of the practical nature of Jesus call to respond to the needs of the poor. Jesus' command to his disciples 'they don't need to go away, you give them something to eat' (Matt 14:16) stands out on the board outside the Mission, and is so poignant. So many people have left the city of Flint already. Onlookers might think the answer is for others to just leave too. But Jesus commands us to respond, even in what looks like a hopeless situation. A crowd of 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish seems to be a similar situation to a city of Flint with a population of 80,000 and the last supermarket in the city about to close. Without a car, without money, where will anyone find food to eat? For Hope4Flint and many other non-profit and church organisations, the answer that they have found is not to send the people away, but to feed people with what there is. The one thing that Flint does have is land. Groups like Edible Flint assist those who want to grow their own food in the city. They will come and check the soil of a garden for its suitability and then help advise on the fruit and vegetables that can be grown and harvested throughout the year.  This is not a quick or easy strategy, it takes time and hard work, but it is working to help feed many people who literally don't know where their next meal is coming from. Hope4Flint has its own "Garden of Love" that it runs with those who regularly drop into the centre, growing everything from strawberries to sweet potatoes and works with others to help them become self sustainable through growing their own food where they can.

Water and the City of God

The Psalmist writes, 'There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells' (Ps 46:4), Revelation 22:1 too describes to us the river of life which flows through the city of God. What can it mean then to be in a city which, has a river running through it, but one which is dirty and which cannot give its residents water that they can drink? I realise that I take what comes out of my tap for granted, for Flint’s residents, as for millions of people across the world, they can’t take it for granted at all.

Today we visited a project called Mission of Hope, Flint. The mission aims to provide warmth (a day shelter in a place which is often serval degrees below freezing), wellness (a high proportion of Flint’s population suffer from mental health issues) and of course, water. It aims to meet the needs of the residents who live here. Bobbie, the project’s leader and pastor, hands out water everyday to those who need it. He has been able to get some free donations from a local Coca-Cola plant in order to have emergency bottled water rations provided.

I’ve been part of soup kitchens and food banks handing out food, I don’t think I’ve ever been somewhere that needs to hand out emergency water. There is something deeply shocking and immediate about this need.

The Psalmist’s words meant something extraordinary to the early hearers, as I think they might do so also for some of the people of Flint. For example, the people of the Old Testament did not take water for granted as much as some of the people of the New Testament. Whereas the New Testament writers had cultures of seafaring Greeks and Romans who travelled the Mediterranean, the ancient Hebrews traversed a desert, staying only where they could find water to survive.

There is a desperation and fear that comes when water is not easy to find, it is part of our survival instinct, it is part of what it means to be human. When we pray for God’s kingdom on earth, we pray for a place where everyone has water in their cities – and across the land. Working for the kingdom is working to make this happen, and that’s exactly what Mission of Hope are doing in real and practical ways.

Dirty Water

Flint has a water problem. A while ago the city of Detroit, who supplied Flint with water, put the water bills up several times. The city of Flint paid the increase for a while before deciding they could not pay to get Detroit out of its financial difficulties – after all, it has its own. Flint has its own river and city officials decided water could be sourced from there to save money. The river is dirty and so a high level of chemicals had to be used. The end result was increased levels of the byproduct trihalomethane as well as odor and discolouration in the water. Water rates remained one of the top three monthly outgoings for most households.

My friend, a resident of Flint, recently received a letter reassuring her that the $100 she pays for she pays a month for water was giving her water that was safe to drink, a problem that most of the town worries about regularly. That is, it is safe as long as she isn’t pregnant or suffering from a weakened immune system. The problem is that many of the city of Flint actually do have serious health problems due to a variety of complex factors, most down to poverty. My friend has a special filter on the tap to ensure the water is safe to drink, it costs around $30 and others rely on bottled water, but for many of the people of Flint both these options are way out of reach. Actually, quite a few of the people of Flint can’t even afford to pay for their water full-stop, dirty or not. Asking around water rates are regularly around $100-150 a month. It is not unusual for those who are unemployed to get cut off, depending on neighbours in the street for water. Meanwhile in Detroit the city is $15 million dollars worse off as a result of Flint going to its own resources and local protests continue.

Illiteracy

The car manufacturer GM was born in Flint and employed 80000 people who moved to the town with their families and invested millions of dollars in buildings, shops and museums, many of which now lie abandoned. GM employs 7500 today. Such massive decline has lead to more than simply widespread unemployment. Those that could moved out of the city in the 70s, 80s and 90s, a movement often called the 'white flight'. The population has gone from 300,000 to under 100,000 today. Yet this move was less about race and more about education and opportunity. Those that could get a job elsewhere did, those that couldn't stayed behind.

Today we visited a project called Christ Enrichment Centre which is part of St Paul's Episcopal Church Flint (the church we attended yesterday). The centre was once an Episcopal church but as folks moved out congregants dwindled and this church was closed. Today it supports those people who have been left behind because they can't get a job elsewhere. For many of these people, they, like a third of the city's adults, are illiterate.

Part of the reason for this widespread illiteracy is that factory jobs that existed previously did not demand many of the workers to read and write. These people - black and white - cannot now work anywhere else.

Christ Enrichment Centre focuses on literacy amongst families and training people learn how to read and write. They are supported by St Paul's and other local churches, by the Episcopal church centrally and they also receive some government funding. They also have an onsite foodbank, work to support young mothers and run a summer camp for children. Today we met a 73 year old gentleman in the centre learning to write for the first time.

8 Mile

Eminem reminded us that those closest to the city are often the worse off. In his film Eight Mile, the title refers to Eminem’s story of growing up only 8 miles from downtown Detroit, an area of high unemployment, depopulation, abandoned buildings, crime and fragmented families. James has already mentioned that as we drove from Detroit out to Flint, we saw that by each ‘mile road’ the houses got bigger, the abandoned buildings got fewer, graffiti lessened, cars increased, restaurants increased, grocery stores and gyms appeared. The problems that effect the city centres are not problems that many of the people who live further out in the suburbs have to live with. Many of these people drive in daily to run the governing systems and work in the offices. Both Flint and Detroit are big cities, too big in size to be supported financially in their infrastructure, and so a lot of the money stays in the suburbs. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

It challenges me to think about how we challenge the injustices that are not quite on our doorstep as well as the ones that are. In fact, how hard do we try to move our doorsteps further away from poverty and chaos altogether? There are plenty of churches in Flint and Detroit with people in doing great things, but are equally plenty of derelict churches. James 1:27 reminds us of our duty to look after those who can’t look after themselves, but also to keep ourselves “unstained” by the world. Do we think of keeping ourselves “unstained” by moving away from dirt, squalor and poverty, or by walking into it?

Urban Decay

This is way too much this video, and the music is pretty bad, but watch a few seconds, it does highlight some of the needs and the area in which we are staying.

Welcome to Flint

Over the next week we are in the town of Flint, 60 miles northwest of Detroit. You might have heard of the city from Michael Moore (from Flint himself) in his film Roger and Me. These postcards are a little reminder that in the 40s and 50s the city was booming. In the 80s the city sank into severe economic depression after years of deindustrialization. In the 2000s became known for high crime rates and ranked as amongst the most dangerous in the United States. Michigan placed the city it in a state of financial emergency in 2011. This kind of reputation never helps a city. One of the city's biggest problems seems to be not what you do see (e.g the media's urban porn style photography shoots ) but what you don't. That is the families and professionals that have left. The 'white flight' is a term used to describe large-scale migrations of white peoples from racially mixed urban inner city areas to racially homogeneous suburban or ex-urban areas. Those with money and jobs essentially have often left the city behind. Driving from Detroit airport out to Flint its clear that many of these people are still surviving and thriving, they just aren’t doing so inside the city gates.