It is amazing to what lengths we will go to avoid seeing what is hard.  This morning on my way home from my run I thought about going down the alley.  I like to pass through that way every once in awhile to check out what’s going on.  The alley is a bit of a “behind the scenes” look at my neighborhood.  – When I walk down it I can see which crews are active by the graffiti.  I have a chance to notice whose landlord is not keeping things up.  Sometimes I can tell if a family has to live out of their garage.  Walking down the alley is one way I take the temperature of how we’re doing as a community.  This morning though, I didn’t want to run down the alley.  I didn’t want to know what’s going on.  I didn’t want to see graffiti.  I didn’t want to notice furniture discarded in the alley.  I didn’t want to know what was wrong.

This willingness to embrace denial has crept into my heart as of late.  There has been a general discontentedness that I have tried to avoid through various methods.  I’ve been shopping. I’ve cleaned house like a madwoman.  I went for long runs.  In this attempt to make myself feel better, I decided I needed to get rid of my scars.  I bought some scar removal anointment and committed to the suggested three times daily application.  It seemed that the more I applied the anointment, the more scars I noticed that needed to be removed.  I was diligent, even rigorous, with applying to each unwanted mark.

Somewhere around day 3 of my manic application of scar lotion I realized that I was removing scars from my body in an attempt to make my heart feel whole.  I was willing to commit to a system of scar removal, yet not willing to sit quietly with my hurting heart.  I did not want to know what was wrong.

Today as I walked to work I thought about taking a different route.  I did not want to see the day laborers on the corner.  We have worked on several initiatives together in our city that have not been successful.  I feel like I’ve let them down and this morning I did not want to answer their questions about our next move.  Plus now with the economy being so bad there are more guys and fewer jobs.   I feel the burden and urgency when I’m with them.  Today I didn’t want to know what was wrong.

I am convicted by what Albert Edward Day wrote in The Captivating Presence:

“I came to a new understanding why Jesus passed up the religious establishment of his day, the economically secure, the socially prestigious, and sought out the poor, the outcast, the sinner, the broken, the sick, the lonely.  He felt, as we so often do not feel, their sorrow.  He was acquainted, as we too seldom are, with their grief.  On Calvary he died of a broken heart.  But that heart was broken long before Black Friday, by the desolation of the common people. ‘In all their afflictions he was afflicted.’

Most of the time we are not.  We seem to have quite a different conception of life.  We avoid as much as possible the unpleasant.  We shun the suffering of others.  We shrink back from any burdens except those which life itself inescapably thrusts upon us.  We seek arduously the wealth and power that will enable us to secure ourselves against the possibility of being involved with another’s affliction.  Lazarus sometimes makes his way to our door step.  We toss him a coin and go on our way.  We give our charities but we do not give ourselves.  We build our charitable institutions but we do not build ourselves into other’s lives.

May Jesus give me his heart to enter into the lives of others.  May he strip away the anointments and alternate routes that keep me from seeing and feeling what is.

Crissy Brooks

Crissy Brooks is the executive director of MIKA Community Development Corporation. To learn more about MIKA visit their website by clicking here.