“Flint is our Calcutta,”
said the young Catholic priest from Ann Arbor to
a group of Catholics—many from the wealthiest parish in the city—assembled to
discern “the Lord’s will for Flint.” I absorbed the insult, took the hit for my
city. There was no discussion. We’d been assembled to receive the plan which
had been worked out by the bishop in Lansing—a
city which might as well be worlds away.
“It’s come to Father James in prayer that God wants people praying in
the St. Michael’s chapel.” Really? Saint Michael’s is my home parish—one that I
can crawl back to every Sunday and sit by familiar faces, touch hands that will
hold me up, lean on the collective body like a mother with a steady heart
beat. Last year, someone stood up after
mass and announced the “plan” for Saint Michael’s: the church will close at some indefinite but
not too far away point in time, but the chapel will stay open. This plan came down from above—from the top
of the hierarchy, but I highly doubt that it is God’s will. “Flint is our Calcutta.” I wish I could unhear those words. They pushed me away. They push Flint far far away. They turn the priest and his helpers into
imitations of Mother Teresas and Flint
into a service project that they can complete and fly away to the next
mission. Years ago, I went to confession
in a London
church, and a very wise priest asked me to imagine those ubiquitous
reproductions of Van Gogh’s sunflowers. In
the dark confessional booth, I pictured a faded postcard stuck to a
refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a lighthouse, and I heard the voice
through the screen say, “God does not want us to imitate anything or
anyone. You don’t have to be your mother
or the Virgin Mary. Be an
original.” I think the old English
priest was right, and I know the young priest is wrong. The need to turn Flint into a service project is, I think, a defense
against the defeated reality of life here.
And I wonder why we have to fear defeat.
America
is dying of its own addiction to success.
Maybe a daily dose of defeat is necessary to teach us to live in solidarity
with other limited people. We are not
perfectible by our own efforts. That is
the myth of America
and of Catholic America, too, that thinks if I say three Our Fathers and Two
Hail Marys my sins will be forgiven. So
many well-intentioned priests and laity think they have the solutions to
everyone’s troubles; but I think their solutions are a cheap way of not having
to share trouble.
I
was happy to get the job in Flint
twenty years ago and happy to be far from a college town. Less stimulation of a certain kind meant
seeing what could be done with a little.
What do I do for Flint? What do I do in Flint?
Some would say nothing, but I have my own ritual of entry. Every day I go out on a kind of scavenger
hunt through the neighborhoods, looking for life. Take yesterday for instance. Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and I had been
doing nothing but chores. After church,
I cleaned the bathrooms, turned our dusty porch into a living space, did the grocery
shopping. No card, no brunch, no
plans. But while my daughter and I were grocery
shopping in Meijer, the paper colored sky turned cobalt, and when I got home, I
had the excuse of needing to walk Panda—my corgi who is never-too-tired to trek. I did what I do everyday—walked myself happy. I lost myself in things. All along the creek that borders Mott Community
College there are birds, darting through the sky
and singing: red-winged blackbirds,
swallows, and yellow warblers. The red
buds are beginning to leaf out. My dog
has discovered an easy path down to the stream, and we were down in a rush and
the sun beams were jumping all over the small waves and there was the smell of
decay. A clump of fur … a baby …
something, and then I see the tiny beak … duckling … Oh, life. We continue past lilacs almost finished
blooming—so soon!— and cross Robert T. Longway into the neighborhoods, where
life exists side by side with rot. Every
other house is in ruins. Many still
stand like bruised up boxers with no retreat:
windows smashed, trash and cheap furniture spilling out onto the
sidewalk, “Fuck U” spraypainted on living room walls, and C/P with a date
spraypainted to tell scavengers there’s no copper pipe left so no point
ransacking. Other houses are charred
pits, chimneys or porch steps the only signs that life was once lived
here. But there are yards and gardens
that are well kept. There is the small
cottage with bee hives out back and five hummingbird feeders hung on a garden
arch. Wind chimes tinkle. At least a dozen bagels are hung on bows of a
tree that’s done flowering—must be for squirrels. A homemade street sign tells me that I am at
the crossroads of Kansas and Kansas;
who says we’re not in Kansas
anymore? “Honeybees come build in the
empty house of the stare.” A wisteria
vine threaded through a drain pipe hangs its festive clusters of lavender
blossoms over porch steps no one uses now.
But cars were pulling up at the occupied houses and visitors piling out
to see mothers or grandmothers. There
was the smell of barbecue in backyards.
There were the tents in Kearsley
Park—Camp Promise—people
hanging out, doing “hippie things” my old student said, when I bumped into him on the boulevard above the park. Patrick was skeptical when I
suggested they were witnesses to the fact that the water crisis is not over and
Flint is suffering because of so many broken promises. Once or
twice, Panda and I walked through the park and met these so-called “hippies,”
rolling cigarettes in the sun. Letting
children run. Sitting in
wheelchairs. Living. The day I bumped into him, Patrick followed me home. We talked about his life as a bond trader who
is up all night watching the Asian markets.
“When I was in second grade, I came out to my mom that to me numbers are
shapes and colors.”
What
is it about this crummy east-side neighborhood that I love so much? It is poor.
Half the houses are unoccupied.
Many would call it a dump, but to me it has more life than the College
Cultural neighborhood where the lawns are fertilized and mowed regularly and
where gardens are planted and tended.
Everything is picture perfect. I
prefer imperfection. Only living things
can die. This neighborhood has not been improved and won't ever be. It is going the way things do in nature, and there is something deeply
reassuring that all disorder and ugliness has not been pushed away but that the
woodchucks are left in peace to tunnel under and ruin garages and raise their
babies. I’m glad that birds can fly in
an out of broken windows and that the homeless can take their pick of homes
here. Yes, there is a lot of real life
in this disreputable looking place. “I wouldn’t walk my dog in a place like
this,” warned a mail lady one gloomy day in March. When I asked her why, she said that there
were too many dogs that would attack. Why
do we have to conjure up danger in every strange face and every chained
animal? I walk. I talk to anyone who is willing. I long for friends. I am open.
I wonder what would happen if I hung a big sign around my neck that said
“Walking is Prayer”? Would people like
that or would they think I was some uppity white lady walking the Queen’s
dog. I don’t know, but I might give it a
try. Or I’ll just keep walking and
witnessing for now. What I know for sure
is that Flint is not Calcutta.
I don’t think we can help a city or help a person unless we take time to
know it or to know her. Only out of that
knowing, which is love, will God make us new.
There
is a personal hurt beneath this post. I
sent that same priest a book for a Christmas gift. He helped me last summer. To this day, he has not acknowledged my
gift. “Honey bees, come build in the
empty house of the stare.”
