a farewell and some thoughts on faithful presence

I've heard a few sermons on Christian duty to the city. Tim Keller is big on this, people trying to build churches here are big on this. But even apart from religious duty I think there's a compelling point to be made about it--people do use cities for what they need them for and then leave them. Urban communities are disjointed because most of their members are transient. And this is part of what makes gentrification so poignant--the percentage of people living here that are planning to stay longterm is a lot lower than it was pre-gentrification. People are moving in, accidentally forcing other people out, and then those people are going to leave in a few years. My native-Crown Heights neighbors were born here and wanted to die here. My transplant neighbors were born in suburbia and probably don't want to die there, but probably will. 

The city serves as a stepping stone--school going, early career building, single years enjoying--before real life begins. Family life and the longing for a bathroom with two sinks calls us out into the great beyond. And neighborhoods like mine serve as a stepping stone as well. People come here to chase low rent, new bars, the next hip thing. But when they graduate, get promoted, start their startup, payoff their student loans--it's off to Manhattan or California or Montana. 

Sometimes I get weird looks when I talk to my Crown Heights native neighbors at length. Their friends don't expect it, and then they're either annoyed or intrigued. Sometimes they ask--What do you do? I tell them I'm in school. They say, Oh, you're going to be a doctor? A lawyer? What you going to be? I tell them I'm studying the arts (ugh, so disappointing). And they say think a moment then come up with something like, Oh you're gonna write a book. You're gonna be successful, and then you're gonna get the hell out of here. Always, they end with, success and the hell out of here.

And they're right. That's what we do with places like Crown Heights, like New York. There's no better place to study the arts than in New York, but there are a hell of a lot of other places to settle down and raise a family. Places without graffiti and urine everywhere, places without flu-friendly subway poles and buildings-wide lingerie ads. 

When I hear those sermons about a calling to the city--to cities in general, not just New York--I've always known it wasn't directed at me. I never imagined I'd live here longterm. I never imagined I'd live here at all until I was practically packing my bags. 

I'm moving away on Friday. It's likely that I'll never live here again--not in Crown Heights, not in New York. While I lived here, I saved a lot of rent money and cost of living money. I experienced new things. I drank locally roasted coffee and locally brewed beer. But I'm really glad that's not all I did.

As I pack my bags again to leave, to really leave, I feel a sense of guilt from the responsibility I feel to my community here. I feel like I'm being that kind of person: the person that drains the city of its resources and then packs them in my luggage and smuggles them out the Lincoln Tunnel. But at the same time I'm grateful for that guilt, specifically for the element of it that comes from the opportunity Crown Heights gave me to care. Living amid gentrification, poverty, and racial tension has lent me a sensitivity I didn't know before, to the importance of everyday actions--a hello on the street, a smile at the register, a name added to a familiar face--and the ability those actions have to build unity within a group of people who don't necessarily have to speak to one another. That sensitivity has allowed me to become attached to this place, and to the energy in the streets, rather than the coolness of the latest new shop.