The Power of Testimony

RUINED
Then he drove into the inner city, detouring down side street
after side street until I was nervous that we’d never find our way
home. Did my father really know his way around these neighborhoods?
Children playing ball in the streets had to stop so our car
could pass. They watched us watch them, our faces separated by
the car windows.
“These children have nowhere to play,” my father said, his voice
filled with emotion. “Look at all the broken glass in the streets.”
During high school I learned more about the history of
Paterson: that the people who worked in the silk mills represented
many nationalities, including some Dutch people, and that it was
rayon that replaced silk decades before polyester did. But even as
a child, I knew that my father was trying to teach us something
more than facts. Awareness. Compassion. Gratitude. I understood
all that, but I also felt a vague sense of guilt. I wished the poor
people would all just move away from that awful place. What was
I supposed to do about it?
As I got older, I began to understand that faith demands a
response to human misery. To be a Christian, a citizen of the
Kingdom of God, I must do my part to clothe people and feed
people and help people. At the very least, I must love them—​
must keep my mind and heart open to them. The song we learned
in Sunday school meant something: “Red and yellow, black and
white, all are precious in God’s sight. Jesus loves the little children
of the world.”
All of this—​as inarticulate and naive as it sounds—​was part of
the reason my friends and I had moved into one of the downtrodden
neighborhoods in Grand Rapids. Not only was the rent cheap,
but we had the hazy idea that our presence was somehow beneficial.
We weren’t exactly the shining light on the hill that John Winthrop,
our Calvinist forebear, extolled, but maybe we would be, someday.
Meanwhile, our presence showed that we, white Christian college
students, didn’t think we were better than our black neighbors.
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