A pilgrim in the Downtown Eastside
"I love Jesus, but I've got holes in my arms." To prove it, Darrin stretched them out, palms upturned. Needle scars peppered his pale skin. He'd been through detox nine times, he told me. "Why doesn't God loose the chains? I don't want to ask Him again; I'm afraid He'll let me down."
Darrin had just finished slipping a needle under his skin, hushing the cacophony in his head with a dose of heroin.
"When I'm not on drugs I don't sleep. My mind goes crazy for days, weeks. It never shuts up," Darrin told me, grinding bloodshot eyes with his knuckles. "I hate being an addict."
I met Darrin in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, possibly the most talked about neighbourhood in Canada these days. Those 25 blocks embarrass Vancouverites, confound policy experts and draw the homeless like pilgrims to warm winters, cheap drugs and a sympathetic community that knows what it's like to live on the sidewalk under the twin curses of addiction and mental illness.
Well-meaning Christians (like me) also flock to this little village of vice. It's a perfect place to hand out sandwiches, do missions and show God's love to the less fortunate. They're easy to find.
In February I spent a week in the Downtown Eastside visiting Jacob's Well, a small ministry in an imaginatively decorated storefront that passersby usually mistake for a café.
I went there to learn something about what the biblical prophets say about justice and mercy. The most important thing I learned was the difference between the two.
They're both expressions of love. Mercy means giving someone a sandwich, sitting with her on the curb, calling the ambulance when she overdoses.
Justice is harder to live, which is why it's so tempting to call it a day after giving someone a sandwich or leading him in the Sinners' Prayer.
Justice means challenging the systems that keep the poor, poor and the rich, rich; asking ourselves how we participate in oppression; looking for ways to empower people like Darrin and learning to hear God's voice from the Downtown Eastside.
Mother Teresa is famously attributed with the remark that she went to Calcutta, not to bring Christ to the poor, but to find Him there.
I went to the Downtown Eastside, not as a missionary, but as a fellow pilgrim. I don't remember talking to a single person who wasn't acquainted with God, but everyone I met still needed Him, including me.
Dear Readers:
ChristianWeek relies on your generous support. please take a minute and donate to help give voice to stories that inform, encourage and inspire.
Donations of $20 or more will receive a charitable receipt.Thank you, from Christianweek.
