Ah Shot Here We Go Again Urban
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," Psalm 23 declares. If he who slayed Goliath were here today, I'd say, "King David, my family and I live in that valley of the shadow of death. We call it Chicago."
On a recent interfaith trip to the Holy Land, my telephone never stopped ringing, and I had to cut my visit in half to render domicile for funerals. One was that of a best friend who had a stroke. Merely the others were the son of an employee, shot and killed by a Chicago police officer, and the grandson of a church fellow member, murdered.
Earlier leaving Israel, I realized something that amazed me: I felt far safer in that location than in my own city. In a region known for state of war and terror, I didn't fear for my life one time.
En route home, I had a nine-hour layover in Warsaw. My good friends Rabbi Yehiel Poupko, Michael Traison and Susan Sacks arranged a tour so I wouldn't exist stuck in an aerodrome all solar day. It turned out to be a delay focused on death.
I toured the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which, of course, included exhibits well-nigh Jews killed in Poland. The emotions I felt were overwhelming. Subsequently my trip, I understood the words "Never over again" even more than.
On all four of my iv trips to the Holy Land, I have seen immature Israeli soldiers in training, visiting places like Yad Vashem and other memorials where they would constantly be reminded of the need for their cede and service to their land and communities.
The sad thing is that, for African-Americans, not much of our past nor our hurting has been preserved for the younger generation to learn from. Maybe information technology's time to build memorials to the slain Chicagoans on every floor in City Hall. Or at 1 of the sites proposed for Amazon's second headquarters.
It'south piece of cake to ignore what you don't see. Just those of usa who live in violence tin't ignore it.
In Israel and Poland, I saw conclusion to ascension up confronting violence. Here, I see urban communities forced to accept its normalization.
The physical toll of Chicago's violence on my customs is all too obvious. Not so apparent, though, are the hidden scars. A survey by my church building'south community outreach arm found 35 percent of Bronzeville students in grades half-dozen, eight, ten and 12 showed signs of clinical low — more than than a tertiary of the one,600 children surveyed.
Pastor Christopher Harris. | Provided photo
Where are the resource for mental health? Not a grant or 2 but meaning investment? Where are the centers that focus on emotional and psychological trauma?
With the help of the Israeli arrangement NATAL, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Academy of Chicago Medicine, United Mode and Cigna, I've been working on an answer. Based on a trauma counseling model I observed on the start of my trip to State of israel in 2012, The Urban Resilience Network — Plough, for short — is my labor of beloved for this violence-wracked metropolis. The Turn Centre's purpose is to assist end people from pain others, to use faith and community leaders to provide trauma counseling to families and communities of victims and perpetrators of violence.
We have to ask: Why is it OK for our dandy metropolis to be shadowed by death?
Aug. 9 is your chance to practice something to assist. That's when Bright Star Community Outreach hosts its annual fund-raising gala for our Turn Eye. Lilliputian support thus far has come from city, state or federal resources. So we're hoping to build on this grassroots effort, which is role of the larger Greater Bronzeville Community Activeness Plan uniting more than l neighborhood partners.
We can build resilience to trauma and violence that lifts u.s. from the hopelessness of "here we go again" to the resolve of "never over again."
Christopher Harris Sr. is senior pastor of Brilliant Star Church.
Source: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2018/6/28/18405818/from-israel-s-never-again-to-chicago-s-here-we-go-again
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