Proximity: Relocation Doesn’t Equal Relationship

by Neeraj Mehta 05-20-2009

One of the principles of the Christian community development movement is “relocation.” While the principle has depth to it, more times then not it is lived out as people who choose to move their physical residence and locate themselves in areas of concentrated poverty (see inner city) throughout our country. In some ways, my family has practiced the simplest part of this idea of ‘relocation’ by living where we live in Minneapolis.

Here’s the problem I am starting to discover with this word/principle. It doesn’t to me inherently imply relationship. I think that it could be quite easy to be physically located somewhere, yet absent in so many other ways. Or to live somewhere and have little to no real relationships with those who live near you.

Like my friend Marque says during his City Matters class, “If you live in the city, but still drive home from work, park in your garage, walk into your house and shut the doors, it doesn’t matter where you’re living, you’re not actively building relationships.”

My second concern has been that I do not believe that everyone needs to relocate to make a difference in the lives of communities struggling with poverty. I even wonder if sometimes relocating becomes a knee-jerk reaction as issues of poverty emotionally move us, and it becomes just one more thing we check off our list of spiritual things to do around justice. I also wonder if, for some of us, moving to the city is actually the easier thing to do, leaving the harder sacrifices Jesus might call us to at the wayside.

I propose a new word: “proximity.”

I believe one of the biggest reasons that poverty continues to exist in our cities is because there are too many degrees of separation between those of us struggling with too much and those of us struggling with too little. In some form or fashion we all need to find ways to get closer to each other.

Proximity, to me, has wrapped up into its meaning this idea of closeness. And I think it is something we can all strive for regardless of where we live.

When you are close with others, it is easier to see the needs, to respond, to love, to not judge, to be physically present, to listen, and to learn.

So how do we not just relocate physically, but make sure we are developing relationships that minimize the degrees of separation that so often keep us apart?

In the parable of the bigger barns you have a man who finds himself with an abundance of crop from his harvest. As he looks around he asks “to himself,” what should “I” do with all that “I” have extra? He then goes on to build up bigger barns to store his extra crop and live as he calls it “the good life.” God judges this person, calling him a fool and telling him his plans for getting life from storing his stuff is foolish, asks from him “his whole life,” and takes the man on the spot.

Here’s what I learn from that passage about proximity.

Proximity (or being close to others) makes it more possible for you to avoid asking the question of what should “I” do with my abundance and allows you to ask the question what should “we” do with our surplus.

Proximity (or being close to the issues) allows you to look around and realize that a hungry world is right around you. Asking the question of what to do with our extra food really isn’t relevant because we are close enough to realize that there are hungry people all around us.

Proximity (or being close to God) allows you to avoid finding life in things that do not actually give life, and helps you value and find life in Christ in a way that allows you to hold lightly to things that God might want you to give away (time, money, stuff, etc).

We spend a lot of time asking the question, “What should I do with my… (time, money, stuff, etc)?” To me this is a harder question when there are so many degrees of separation between the real needs of individuals and communities and our daily lives.

But as you do the work and make the sacrifices it takes to draw closer and closer to people, to individual issues, to the issues of a community, the question of “what to do?” becomes easier to answer.

Neeraj Mehta has been working with others to uncover beauty and strength in north Minneapolis for the past 10 years. Previously he has worked for Project for Pride in Living and most recently as Program and Strategic Development Director for the Sanctuary Community Development Corporation. Currently, he is working with the community building intermediary Payne-Lake Community Partners, partnering with others to create more engaged and powerful communities in the Twin Cities.

Categories: Ministry, Poverty

AmorMinistries

Thank You Neeraj.
The adage "good fences make good neighbors" has always struck me as inconsistent with our call to love our neighbors. Relationships are paramount in building the kingdom. Meeting people where they are requires meeting them in the first place - whether you live next to them or not.

Amor Ministries
amor.org/blog

Burley

"Good fences make good neighbors" is directly about keeping one's cows out of the neighbor's cornfield. To farmers it makes good sense. To city dwellers it is a somewhat distant concept until we consider that the proverb is broadly about one person's means of livelihood--or any other activity--negatively impacting the lives of others because of carelessness or willful lack of concern.

Consider: Pollution. "Development" that razes buildings and destroys neighborhood businesses without consideration or compensation. Big Box stores that sprout up at the edge of a city and suffocate downtown retail districts. . . . .

letjusticerolldown

I am a big fan of relocation. But as any 'truth' the understanding of it comes out of a life of obedience.

I like it because it implies we often (not once, but often ) need to get up off our behinds and move ourselves.

It reminds us that when we move ourselves--we tend to land ourselves right next to the folks who are most like us--and virtually no one wishes to go to the 'end of the road' to the truly 'other.'

The ways we create and walk out relationships are many. I like your idea of proximity. I like incarnation. I like presence. I like connection. I like righteousness. I like justice. I like shalom. Different words help us catch different aspects of the journey and calling. Often we land on one word to summarize a quite rich journey.

Others will take that word and reduce it to a rule or a form. Then we need someone to come along and say, "No, we need a different word." The problem isn't the word, but rather the need to speak freshly each day about a fresh day's journey in seeking first the Kingdom.

Wake up friends and sojourners. Our behinds may need to be moved this day!!!!!!!!!!!!

progressingpilgrim

Thank you for this article. For the first half of it my critical nature was developing a counter-argument. That nature received lighter fluid when a new word, "proximity", was presented. I am in the education world and one thing I dislike about my profession is the obsession with semantics. As though changing a word changes a student. In this context I found the conclusion of the article to contradict the body. The conclusion; Truly having proximity with God dissolves the checklists. But I felt that the call to change the word "relocation" in the body feeds straight into that 'checklist' or legalistic mentality.

But I love the post because it is encouraging to a man who is trying to lead his family on a journey in Christ. As my wife and I have grown in our faith, it is definitely true that the "what to do" question seems to get answered for us. And it always seems to take us somewhere we wouldn't have ever dreamed we would go...but it always makes sense in His timing.

Thanks again -

natronic

It's a nice idea, but mushy. You haven't fully thought through your choice of "proximity," which appears to be based in part on the personal feelings that the word produces for you.

Proximity means "nearness in place, time, order, occurrence, or relation." Another definition is "the quality or state of being next in time, place, causation, influence, etc.; immediate nearness, either in place, blood, or alliance."

To do what you write about means going beyond changing your location (or getting in closer proximity). It requires one more step: interaction. You chose a word that, for your purposes, means the same thing as the word you're seeking to change. Interaction that goes beyond nodding at the neighbor who you happen to see taking out their trash.

I suggest "intentional interaction".

To be fair, it's rare that single word can convey a complex set of ideas. In "relocation"'s defense, it is an easily understood concept that implies that you intend on interacting with those nearby in your new environment. Otherwise, why would you be moving? Cheaper rent? Not in the context of Christian community.

The rich and poor will always be divided, but I hope as you do that interaction can somehow increase. Human nature is too selfish and corrupt, and as you hint at, sometimes the selfishness is justifiable (safety for one's family, desire for good schools, etc.). Even the Politburo in Soviet Russia, to give an extreme example of the hypocrisy that happens when leftist ideology meets human nature in practice, didn't exactly live in the apartments of laborers.

Intentional interaction with those from different economic strata is a good thing. More people should do it, and I hope more do. But I fear it never will catch on in large fashion. Look what happens when low-income housing is plopped in middle class neighborhoods. Poverty = crime = the more fortunate leave to build suburban moats somewhere else.

And "the poor will always be among us."

I guess I'm just a realist on an idealist blog.

JoannaCW

"Poverty=crime" rings false to me. I do think it's true that poorer people are somewhat more likely to be jailed, but that's a different matter. I know a young man who was picked up for drug dealing but not charged because his father was an important person and no one wanted to embarrass his family.

JoannaCW

I like the idea of proximity. It gives the goal, rather than the process. Moving into a poorer area is one way to get closer to the people who live there. Another way is working with your hands. Or forgoing a high salary or credentials. Or receiving and passing on hand-me-downs. And noticing how other people respond to you.

neerajmehta

Thanks for all the comments. I would agree that I probably could think through a bit more clearly my thoughts on this topic. I do think that replacing a word for a word obviously doesn't make that much of a difference! But I think everyone has picked up on my heart which is this struggle of finding ongoing ways to move closer and closer to people. I struggle at times of living my independent, individual life, only focused on my own family's well being, while at the same time wanting to live more interdependently with my neighbors. It's a hard deal!

I like the way Joanna you stated Proximity as a goal rather than a process. That makes sense to me a lot.

Natronic: thanks for calling me mushy! I totally am and it comes across in my writing. I used to get in trouble in grad school all the time for too much 'feeling'. oops!

letjusticerolldown

Thanks for follow up comment.

Let me add one comment to others made here about semantics. In a sense it is semantics--but in another way it is much more than that. It is theologizing. It is not theologizing in the halls of a university or seminary. It is theologizing by persons that need to do much more of it--bringing a laguage of faith to the life of faith in the streetsl.

Palosaari

I like this. I do think that real Christian community is only going to come through a common place though, along with a common purpose and possessions. You need that place- but, as you say, you need a whole lot more. I like what Frazee says in The Connecting Church about this.

whfaulkner

Thank you, Neeraj (Mehta), for your article. Your humility may be obscuring your work in the Sanctuary CDC and your collaboration with Payne-Lake Community Partners, which appears to me to be quite significant. I notice that the PLCP website speaks of "operating at an arms-length distance" in the Twin Cities of MN. I suspect that may be part of what has prompted your struggle with the word and principle of "relocation" in the Christian community development movement and your substitution of the word "proximity". It seems that Sanctuary CDC is serving people very directly, while PLCP is taking a more indirect and systemic approach. The good question everyone is raising in this discussion pertains to the quality of our relationships.

Here is my struggle, and I ask for everyone's help. I want to establish a "cohousing" community (see Wikipedia and related article on "intentional communities") in the South Hampton Roads region of Virginia, but should I do it in an urban or rural setting? Trying to obey St. Peter's admonition to the Jerusalem Council to "remember the poor", and wanting to move beyond personal preference, is it better to relocate (draw physically and spiritually near to the poor) in an inner-city or rural area, or stay put in my suburban planned unit development, which is the antithesis of cohousing and intentional community? In other words, is the path out of poverty (am I the poor one?) and into the abundance of God's kingdom achieved better by going directly to the poor in inner-cities and feeding them via a community garden, for example, or serving the poor more indirectly by luring fewer of them to participate in a larger scale CSA farm in a rural area? In another context of social, environmental and economic justice, is it better to retrofit buildings for sustainable community in urban neighborhoods or to build a cohousing community from scratch on undeveloped land? There seem to be no easy answers to such questions. Your thoughts, please.

letjusticerolldown

I have strong intents to work on a cohousing development. My first commitment is to this place where I believe God has me; and to my church in this place. We want to develop a whole community that will integrate some existing subdivisions, and incorporate cohousing. The surrounding area is saturated with subsidized rental developments and bottom-end residences. So the challenge is the creation of a plan that creates a long-term viable community where low-income persons are welcome, are able to put their lives together, are able to start businesses, have the range of incomes/education/expertise a viable community needs, etc. etc. I am in an existing subdivision. The first challenge is to be neighbors and connect neighbors--to move saints in the area to prayer and outside of our front doors to love our neighbors--to increase the number of church families who nail their feet to the ground here for the long-term.

There is not a pattern. I live on edge of city where there is much low-income and undeveloped land in the same area. Every place and situation is unique.

The cohousing may or may come about. It may happen in different forms. I can't predict/prescribe exactly how the community develops.

This is part of why I stick with the 'relocation' word (at least as part of the picture). Most (not all) folks need to deal with the question about where God has them. This might mean moving. It might mean staying. But be somewhere you can genuinely love with the good news of Jesus--and nail your shoes to the floor until God moves you elsewhere. Live with the folks there and work it out.

A cohousing community does not exist by itself. It is in relationship. It is connected to the larger world. My issue is not with groups doing it different ways in different places--but being dishonest about the nature of the external relationships. You could go hard-core inner-city and create your own little cohousing ghetto. You could move to a mountain-top and drive a fleet of SUV's into the city everyday. I am exagerating--but only a little.

Would be glad to communicate. contact me a runwiththechariots (at) yahoo

neerajmehta

whfaulkner: thanks for your thoughts. a few thoughts of my own:

my struggle is not with my 'work'. i very much appreciate what I am able to accomplish through PLCP. In fact, the community building we do is unique in how close an organization like our gets to the ground compared to others. the struggle more has to do with the day to day individual lives. in fact sometimes i think because i live and work in the same community, it is hard to differentiate the two!

as for your questions. i think you nailed it on the head when you said there are no easy answers. that is absolutely true. nor do i think there is a wrong answer in the questions you are asking. i guess my main encouraging would to not include in your processing what you have to offer in each of those different settings, but what do you have/need to learn? And would one be better for YOU and what God wants to do in YOU through the community you would be intentionally living with?

whfaulkner

Thanks for these two replies. I have written privately to letjusticerolldown and would be happy to include you, Neeraj, in a 3-way dialogue, if you care to reply again to whfaulkner@hotmail.com. Two potential residents of my cohousing proposal have conflicting desires for a rural vs. urban location, and I can go either way, depending largely on what land, developed or not, can be identified. My wife and I are very early in this process, and we will try to form a small faith community with these two men and their wives with the goal of pursuing answers. This intentional community would be ecumenical in the broad sense, but without the involvement of any religious institution. I will look for your reply. Blessings from Bill