Community Renewal thru Rejuvenation of the Soul

Communities are Broken How do you heal a broken community? I have wrestled with this issue in urban communities. I have researched this dilemma by reading Robert Franklin's, Crisis in the Village and Edward P. Wimberly's “African American pastoral Care and Counseling, and The Politics of Oppression and Empowerment. The books that really resonated with me were Edward P. Wimberly's book, “Relational Refugees and Cornel West book, “Democracy Matters. These authors confirmed my belief that broken and disillusioned urban communities can be rejuvenated. Not with laws, and police and prison but rejuvenated from the inside; Rejuvenation of the soul. Many urban Communities are under siege by gangs, gang violence and drugs and with illiteracy, high unemployment and teenage pregnancy added to the mix, these communities are fighting for their survival. I know they can be transformed into healthy, safe, productive communities through supportive relationships, empathy, experiencing life together; with unselfish loving, honest sharing, practical serving, sympathetic comforting and consistently fellowshipping together. This is what I call community renewal through rejuvenation of the soul. I saw the deterioration of the family, the influx of gangs and violence. I saw this in urban communities in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. I saw what was happening. I saw what they were doing. They were involved in the increase of drug sales as a way for the disenfranchised to generate income in the poor and poverty stricken neighborhoods. And along with this came the violence. Many were arrested and sentenced to prison for drug distribution. Then, I witnessed the men and women returning to their community angry, desperate and mentally challenged. Who am I? I've been around. I was a high school dropout. I raise myself in Harlem and Brooklyn. I didn't have a positive father role model. I went to night school. I was angry. I felt betrayed by my father. I wanted him to be my role model. I wanted him to show me how to be a man and a Good man. I realize that I was on my own at the young age of fourteen and a half. There were drugs, gangs and street violence all around me. I saw it and to some degree was caught up in it. I was determined to not fail. I was a high school dropout, not because of aptitude but because of my attitude. I refuse to let my father abuse my mother another day. I didn't get any counseling support from my family. Their idea of Solving a problem was to send it away. So, I wound up in a foreign Land called Harlem, New York.. My soul was damaged. I was a child in a man's world. I had God as my savior, my friend and my father. The relatives I was sent to live with did not have time for a poor country boy. They use to sit and laugh about how they took me in after my father put me out. I was the joke of the neighborhood. I was lost without a caring soul. They had a three bedroom railroad flat with a nice room for visitors but put me in the storage room. The room was the size of a cot and all of the storage included me. I was grateful that they gave me a place to rest my head. But I was alone. You know what? My grandmother once told me that the Lord will make a way somehow. Thomas A Dorsey wrote this song and we use to sing it at that little church is Virginia. “Like a ship that's tossed and driven, Battered by an angry sea, When the storms of life are raging and their fury falls on me, I wonder what I have done that makes this race so hard to run, Then I say to my soul, take courage, The Lord will make a way somehow. The Lord will make away somehow, When beneath the cross Bow; He will take away each sorrow, Let him have your burdens now; When the load bears down so heavy; The weight is shown upon my brow, There's a sweet relief in knowing, O the Lord will make a way somehow.” I was fourteen and a half years old and I sang that song every night resting on that cot, in that small room, behind the kitchen, away from the rest of the family with tears running down my face. I was alone and shame that I dropped out of school; shipped away from my family and friends. Sometimes your shame is private. Pushed over the edge by an Abusive parent. To the outside world everything is fine, but you know and that's enough. Steps to Achieve Community Renewal thru rejuvenation of the Soul To capture this initiative, I introduced the notion of I.R.I.S.E. It is an acronym meaning, “Using Integrated Resources, to instill self-sufficiency and Empowerment.” Rejuvenation cannot take place without partners. I sought outside resources: community corporations, local non-profits, Churches, local government and banks. They came together to assist in the rejuvenation. With the support of Shiloh Baptist Church, I began to initiate the kind of pastoral care that I refer to throughout this book to bring about self-sufficiency and empowerment of the members of the Rutherford Heights Civic Association. This was about making a difference where you live. I wanted to teach the community to become partners in creating a better world for their children and themselves. I was determined to develop a blueprint of rebuilding the neighborhood system of caring relationships, person by person, house by house. I knew that rebuilding the neighborhood was going to be a challenge and rejuvenating the soul and even greater challenge. But the Bibles say “Faith without works is death.” I know as a black man in America that everyone wants to live in a good neighborhood and to have that; we have to be in relationships with each other.