SCarey

Six shots rang out as I was shutting down the computer for the night. I pulled on my shoes and followed the flow of people to the corner of S. Carey and James Streets, arriving before the police. There his lifeless, bloodied body lay crumpled in the street.

S. Carey and James.

It's the same corner where the police shot an unarmed man a couple years back. That happened right after the girl got hit and killed by a car at that same corner.

It's where several prostitutes would gather with their toddlers in the evening, rotating who was with the johns and who was on the street watching the kids as they wait for Mom's return.

Sometimes on those same steps during daylight hours I see junkies nodding off after their heroin fix.

From S. Carey and James I can see two different houses in which people died and no one knew it for over a week until the smell alerted the neighbors.

It's also where Michael's leg got crushed by a car.

The house three in from the corner has been fixed up since it was fire bombed shortly after I moved to this neighborhood.

That building across the street from that house is where the boys used to wait for the pedophiles to come by and offer them money for favors.

Of course, at the next intersection north I can point out the house where the father threw his infant down the stairs in order to kill her (which he did successfully) and at the next intersection south I can point our open air drug deals and blatant prostitution both day and night.

Meanwhile, we'll be gathering in churches around the globe to debate the color of carpeting in the foyer, who is qualified to receive communion, and what songs are appropriate to sing in a particular service. Denominations are spending countless dollars and hours gathering people to decide appropriate sexual ethics and will spend even more money and time when churches split over these and other issues. People will be in an uproar about the location of a mosque and riot over football games.

Yet corners like S. Carey and James keep happening in places all over the globe. Unnoticed. Undebated. Unfunded.

The people trapped around the S. Carey and James Streets of the world wonder who will lead the riot, the uproar, the debate on their behalf. Who will bring healing and wholeness and restoration to their land? Who will bring hope and peace and sweat and tears and presence to not let another shot ring out, not let another john pick up, or bomb crash through the glass?

Yes, it's easier to talk about carpet because there's hope we might just be able to solve the problem. But if the church doesn't look at S. Carey and James with hope, who will? Who even could?

Do we have a Creator who is unsatisfied with the conditions at S. Carey and James? Do we have a Savior who wants both spiritual and temporal salvation at S. Carey and James? Do we have a Sustainer who will give strength and wisdom and courage to those who will follow His lead to S. Carey and James?

S. Carey and James. The locals say SCarey Street, and scary it can be.

Good thing God's Spirit doesn't make cowards of us (2 Timothy 1:7).

Lord, let my life shine Your light in the darkness.