The Red Bricks

I see them as I round the bend of the road, leaving the affluent downtown apartments behind. The large red brick structures peak around the corner. Most pass these by on their way to the “safer” neighborhood jobs. Most dare not make the turn I make every day. But I do, each morning Monday through Thursday. I pull down Grove Street into one of the housing projects of Chattanooga. There are always a few out and about, kids waiting for the buses, mothers there to watch that nothing happens in these early morning groups. I pull in, always check around me, and lock my car doors as I enter our clinic.

I’ve been working in this small clinic in the projects for going on 4 years now. It has been the best job I’ve ever had. It has also given me a completely new view on life. I see patients who have grown up in the projects, 40 year-olds that are grandparents, 20 year-olds who are seeking out disability. I see girls beat up by their boyfriends, and people who haven’t seen a doctor in 10 years but should have started seeing one 11 years ago!

I struggle with wrapping my mind around this type of poverty, this cycle of babies being born to mamas who are babies themselves. I struggle because I have never had to worry as I lay my head down that gun shots will ring out in the night. I’ve never had to worry about being without food or gas or a roof over my head any days of my life thus far. I’ve never had to worry that my husband is going to fly off the handle and his solution to the problem is going to be using a gun on me, or the one whose anger the bullet will penetrate.

It’s hard for me to listen to people fuss about how all these people are lazy, not trying, unworthy of help. People are poor and life is hard, but a job is not always a solution to every problem, and the desire to do better is not lost, but often the means are harder than us rich people realize. I wonder what I would do if my mom wasn’t at home most nights, if I had sole responsibility of myself and siblings at the tender age of 7, if our paycheck was barely going to cover the light bill and there were still 20 days left in the month to cover things like food, transportation, or medical bills. It’s not that easy to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” when there aren’t any boots around.

I know one can argue, there are programs, and supplements, and this, that, and the other. But the truth is, who tells these people about all this? It’s not like they get a packet in the mail saying “You have nothing. You Qualify for ­­­_______". Do you know how many forms my patients have to fill out to qualify for one free medication? I’ll let you know, your hand would cramp by the end. Add into that a limited ability to read and write, and some of this stuff is down right overwhelming. Not to mention, rules change, people with power stop programs without notice and don’t bother to tell anyone affected by it. I imagine if I were constantly having to be told what to do, how to do it, change my plans, or not have any plans, I would be disgruntled too. Do you like people telling you what to do?

One night, as I was descending from the office door down the red brick steps covered with teenagers (because we have free internet), I noticed a little boy about 5 years old. I smiled and he hid his eyes, like boys of that age do sometimes. As I was nearing him a much older man, in his 40s, called out, “Hey little man! How you be?” The boys head sunk lower and his teenage cousin’s response was, “Man, everyone knows my cousin!” My mind careened through all the reasons this little boy would know these grown men. None of these thoughts were for good reasons. And so my heart breaks a little bit every day, because there is suffering endured by so many that never gets thrown into the equation of poverty. But the miracle in this is that people keep on. There is joy down in these red brick buildings too. My heart fills up again when someone lets out a long sigh of relief when they know that I am here to truly take care of them. It fills when the kids group that meets in our clinic learns about God’s love and how it’s unconditional while everything else in their world is full of conditions.

Each night, I leave this red brick jungle and I say a prayer. I pray that tonight no violence will erupt. I pray that little children’s bellies are full. I pray that my older patients can sit on their porches without being harassed, and I pray that there are people in places that I don’t know about working to change a very broken and abused system. I’ve learned in a few short years that survival of the fittest may mean trying to get money any way you can, government or otherwise. I’ve learned that you are treated much differently when you don’t have money, a name, or a job (and maybe even worse when you do have a job because try surviving on minimum wage and getting decent healthcare with no benefits).

Each night, after I leave and pray and drive to pick up my children from their expensive daycare and drive to my safe neighborhood, I worry that I might be part of the problem. I consume and take for granted lots of luxuries that are a given part of my life and may not be a given for someone else’s. I take for granted driving to the store, buying groceries that I want, having the ability to constantly communicate with anyone I desire via Ipad, Iphone, or internet. But I’m becoming more aware. I realize I don’t have to travel to another nation to see poverty and injustice, because it is sitting outside my office door. I still feel a bit immobile or paralyzed in all of this, but as I’m becoming more entrenched in the culture and community, I become more impassioned. I know God has called me to the red bricks because He’s here…it’s just hard to see him always. He’s in the least of these and there are a lot who fit that description. I cannot turn my back on a person just because I feel that they are squandering resources or living life poorly. I cannot make that judgment, because I wouldn’t want that judgment made of me.

So next time you find yourself driving next to the old brick buildings on “that” side of town, send up a prayer, search your own heart a little bit to see behind the bricks into the lives of those who suffer greater things than you can ever imagine, who don’t have the stability to know what tomorrow will hold, who just want to have someone tell them, “I’m on your side, I’m here for you.” You don’t need to be anyone special to care, you just have to leave the boxes we’ve constructed out of our ideals, luxuries, and attitudes and recognize that we are all in this together.