More than a decade ago my family and I moved to Grand Rapids. In the search of a house I kept going back to one particular neighborhood. What drew me there? Perhaps something in the built environment -- sidewalks or the small neighborhood shopping center -- reflected something appealing. I speculate that the habits of living embedded in a place -- the sense of place -- that developed during a time when the neighborhood was more homogeneous have been passed on to the new families who now come from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds. Places continue to develop and come into being through a variety of means.
As I contemplated all these issues recently, I sat in a coffee shop in my neighborhood shopping center, a district that everyone had worked hard to maintain. The hardware store, against all odds, rebuilt after a fire and, just this fall, a new vegetable and fruit market opened after a three years gap since the closure of the previous grocery store. The new store has much more local produce. The coffee shop, library, and ice cream shop are busy. And recently some of the local churches have joined to form the Stewards of Plaster Creek, a group that is moving the faith community toward action in restoring the creek that travels through this part of the city, providing habitat for everything from wild turkeys to salmon. Through greater attention to our impact on the community of the watershed, we try to work to bring Shalom in the place where we live.
We are attempting to form spiritual disciplines, or habits of life, that help us “know” our piece of the Earth. I believe my neighbors and I are moving closer to a fully integrated life—shalom—when we experience the joy of the neighborhood children who walk to the Tuesday evening book reading at the ice cream shop, and the excitement of locals who stop to tell us they have seen the wild turkeys on their walk. For me? I experience shalom every time I can walk into the hardware store with parts from my bathroom shower in my hand, and have the owners hand me replacement pieces AND tell me how to put it all back together.