11/15/2022
During our year-long round of visits along the East Coast and California, I was instructed by my wife to not respond a certain way to the frequently asked question, “So where will you two be living now that you’re back in the USA?”. Accusing me of being a conversational bomb thrower, Mi Amor forbid me to give the one-word answer, “Harlem”. Being an obedient husband, I would say, “We are living in New York City.” As I did, at a rather formal dinner in Alabama when asked by a delightful, cultured white-glove Southern woman about our age. She followed up, “Well, Reverend, whea in New York City?” Me,“We’re renting a studio in Manhattan”. Not to be put off, “Dear, what part of Manhattan?” I look at Joanne until she says, “Harlem”. A stunned silence around the table is broken by another woman who pretty much shouts, “But isn’t that dangerous?”
I began calling this conversation the Three Step, “NYC, Manhattan, Harlem”, as it became so familiar. At one home, our Floridian host, burst out with a hearty round of laughter. “That’s a good one Robert!”, followed by a jovial slap on my shoulder. When he realized we were not joking, he asked if that was a wise decision. And in a Steakhouse further north, after the Three Step and a period of silence, the collective missions team decided that since our motive was to live near family, “it would be alright”.
There are City Mice and Country (now more Suburban) Mice. There are two different ways of life each with its pleasures and downsides. Many who don’t live in American cities think of them as dens of depravity and places where life is constantly in the balance. So let’s talk about crime. I’ll defer the racial aspect as this is a conversation profound, complex, surprising and for another time. People, it’s not like what you see on the tele. Crime shows filmed here haul in tons of trash to make the streets look dirty and neglected before the shoot.
At the above dinner conversation with our Southern hosts, I reminded our hosts that it was five times more likely that I would take a bullet in the state of Alabama than in the State of New York. Later that evening, I was roundly lambasted by my Life Guide that I nearly shut down the dinner conversation. Was I tossing a bomb or pastorally calming our hosts fears? Well… maybe a little of both. The evening did end well.
For some reason, this numerical illiterate is able to retain crime statistics in his head. Massachusetts being one of the safest places to live these days and New York following close behind. This level of safety is quite an accomplishment given the millions of depraved people living side by side - I speak as a Calvinist using the word “depraved” here. One of the great blessings of common grace is that we sinners can build amazingly complex cities. When you think about it, given the sorry material she has to work with, it’s amazing society runs as well as it does. Now in 1977 our fair city was on the verge of collapse with over 2,000 gun deaths per year (and through the 1990´s) compared to today 867 deaths by gun in 2022. Granted, we are having a post pandemic crime spike. And if you’re one of the dead, these statistics offer the cold comfort of a marble mortuary slab at Saint Luke’s down in the Village.
Now violence is up in part due to gangs https://vimeo.com/770800459 but especially emotionally troubled folk who did not negotiate the pandemic very well. https://youtu.be/F5tsv-TJhB0 Recently, I witnessed in a single 20 minute subway ride the following: A homeless man in rags loudly cursing both Jesus and Mohammad as he strode back and forth in our subway car. Now one can defame Jesus and get a pass, but Mohammad? Waiting for a bullet on the A Train. Another barefoot man, beautifully clad in a matching silk paisley Aladdin outfit at the same time going through our car on his knees politely asking each rider for money. For some reason, he struck me as a refugee from my home state of Ohio. Maybe it was the accent. Then there was an older gentleman, elegantly dressed in a three piece suit completed with a gold watch chain in his vest pocket and sporting a Humphrey Bogart-style fedora on his head. This senior entered our car, sat down and promptly fell asleep. A few stops later, three young men entered our by now very crowded rush-hour car and one of them bumped him by accident. Jumping to his feet, the elegant man raised his fists boxer style and challenged to take on all three of the younger men at once. Unable to dissuade the boxer, the younger men changed cars at the next stop as did about a third of the passengers as things were getting pretty tense with these three gentlemen carrying on at the same time. (I’m pretty sure most if we riders were thinking of an incident a month previous where a deranged man pulled out a gun and fired off 33 rounds inside a subway car. Miraculously no one was killed nor were any of the injuries life-threatening.) After changing cars, I found myself smushed up face to face with a young Wall Street type coming home from fueling the engines of Capitalism. He, wearing what I judge a $3,000 suit, said, “That was quite a scene.” To which I replied, “Yes, riding the train is the best theater ticket in town and this is why you pay such a high rent for the privilege of living here.” To which we both let off some of the tension of this trip home with a good laugh. The above tales from our tunnels are true but rare. Joanne and I ride the subway, called “the train” here, many times pretty much every day of the week. And we love it.
In summary, Joanne and I go about day and night always mindful of our surroundings. We never walk on an empty street. We stay along the subway walls as we wait for the train to arrive. The above video explains why. Our travel is done in the confidence that other New Yorkers around us will be of help should the need ever arise, as in the case of the man shoved in above video. In all our 40 plus years of city living, we’ve witnessed some pretty crazy stuff but have never seen a robbery or even heard a gunshot. Now anyone can take a random bullet at anytime, but in our Metro area of 22 million urbanites, we feel the odds are with us.
As John Calvin notes in the Institutes, “Apart from the providence of God, every roof shingle is a threat to one’s life.” Or as he more fully expands in his commentary on the Psalms, “There is nothing more calculated to increase our faith, than the knowledge of the providence of God because, without it, we would be harassed with doubts and fears, being uncertain whether or not the world was governed by chance. For this reason, it follows that those who aim at the subversion of this doctrine, depriving the children of God of true comfort, and vexing their minds by unsettling their faith, forge for themselves a hell upon earth. For what can be more awfully tormenting than to be constantly racked with doubt and anxiety? And we will never be able to arrive at a calm state of mind until we are taught to repose with implicit confidence in the providence of God.”
But for the holy, wise and powerful providence of our God.
A Train in 1977 & same A Train today.
