By Jennifer Mains
Published March 2000
We all create our own community maps. These maps are defined by the routes we choose as we walk within our neighbourhoods, routes which help us maintain certain illusions about our community.
On our way to stores, libraries or businesses, we choose to travel down particular streets because they appear to be safe. Sometimes we choose a certain route because we feel it is visually pleasant. We design our routes to divert our eyes and feet from what we believe is unpleasant or unsafe.
I live in the downtown area of Kitchener and have my own community map defined by my favourite routes. These routes avoid the heavily trafficked streets, the more run-down houses and factories. For the past twelve years I have walked downtown with my children, carefully plotting the routes that were pleasant and safe.
As the years went by, this became more difficult. Stores were closed, buildings burned down and cinemas shut their doors. As the downtown changed, I became progressively more anxious about walking these streets. I didn’t see as many parents strolling with their children or people wandering between the shops. Instead there were more people standing in abandoned doorways and young people hanging around the corners. Eventually I stopped walking downtown. There were no more routes that I could take to avoid what was unpleasant and what felt unsafe.
In the current issue of Catholic New Times, James Loney, in his article, “Crossing Over Reveals the Stranger Within,” writes that when we are the strangers, the outsiders, when we are “stripped of all vestiges of belonging, usefulness and power,… we learn that we are all just ordinary joe-shmoes sharing the same frailties and struggles.”
Last September, I walked through the doors of St. John’s with my two children and realized that my carefully planned routes, my avoidance of what might appear to be unpleasant or unsafe had allowed me and my children to become strangers in our own community. I stood at the threshold of the dining room door feeling totally useless, wondering what I could possibly contribute. Would anyone even want to talk to me? Thankfully St. John’s is a community full of grace. When I plunged forward, saying hello, asking how people enjoyed the meal, I was greeted with patient smiles, a few smirks, but most often with polite responses to my sometimes awkward conversations.
I am beginning to learn to listen, to hear the stories of those sharing my neighbourhood. I still like to walk down tree-lined streets because this gives me a sense of wellbeing, but I see some of the houses and buildings that I used to avoid in a new light. Now when I walk downtown with my children, I hear them calling out to the people they know. They work with the volunteers at the Kitchen. At lunchtime they share jokes and stories with whoever will listen. Without hesitation they will wander the room, searching for someone who can help them with a difficult homework question.
I am thankful for the gracious way that my children and I have been received at St. John’s. My community map has expanded. I do not know where this walk will take me.
