You can by a vacant lot in South
Chicago right now for $1.
With over 5,000 lots in the Englewood district alone, the
City of Chicago is buckling under the weight of ongoing upkeep for so many
empty and unused spaces around the city. Spaces that emerged after the housing
market collapsed and have now become garbage dumps, centers for drug dealing or loitering gang members.
The solution: sell them off for the price of a pack of gum.
But before you dash off to Chicago seeking your own piece of the pie, you need
to know that there is a catch, you must
already own a house on the same block.
The plan is a rather ingenious one that protects the
neighborhood from possible gentrification while simultaneously ensuring that
the lots will be well cared for. How? Because the people who care about those
spaces the most are the people living next to them. From my front yard here in
North Georgia I scarcely, if ever, consider the state of vacant lots in
Chicago. Even if I did muster some vague sense of concern, I am doubtful that
it would ever transfer into a plan of action. Furthermore, even if I were
inspired to act, I am distrustful that my action would be in the best interest
of the neighborhood, a neighborhood I don’t live in, full of people I don’t
know, in a city that is not my home.
Conversely, if there was a vacant lot next to my house
filled with garbage and drug dealers and gang members, and if my kids were
running through it daily, you can imagine I would find myself quite inspired to
do something about it.
And yet, many of us find that we are surrounded by vacant
lots of various kinds daily that fail to generate any sense of responsibility
in us; a responsibility to bring light, or beauty, or joy or dignity to barren
spots of land. While we may not live next to a physical patch of abandoned
asphalt, every one of us has been called to a place and to a people for which
we are responsible. They might be a fellow employee, or someone from your
community, your neighborhood, your school, or your street. Jesus calls them
your “neighbor” and some of them are desperately in need of attention. Like the
cracked hardtop between apartments in South Chicago many of the people we
connect with from our sphere of influence have slipped, unnoticed, into
disrepair. Weeds have grown up through the ground, chocking out what was once a
bed of grass, while broken glass and old tires have slowly replaced gardens and
fruit bearing trees. Laughter of innocent children has given way to violence
and sounds of gunshot. Have you noticed?
In his book Visions of
Vocation, Steve Garber writes,
“Whether our vocations are as butchers, bakers or
candlestick makers- or people drawn into worlds of business or law, agriculture
or education, architecture or construction, journalism, or international
development, health care or the arts – in our own different ways we are
responsible, for love’s sake, for the way the world is and ought to be. We are
called to be common grace for the common good.”
Do you share God’s vision, passion and longing for what is
possible in the vacant lots surrounding you? After all, if those living closest
to them fail to be unmoved by the glaring gap between what they are and what
they could become, who will? Is there a lot in particular that you have
recognized which needs some attention - some grace, some friendship, some hope,
some “common grace” and “common good?” Perhaps “for love’s sake” you might consider partnering
with God as he seeks out the forsaken, the discarded and the forgotten- the
vacant and abandoned- joining him in his work of “making all things new.” Let’s
seek to ensure that in each of our own neighborhoods there is no need for the
city to sell land to anyone with a dollar. We can all agree, they are
infinitely more valuable than that.
