Amazing Grace in the Ghetto

I just got done reading the book Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol for my grad class. While the title is in reference to the well-known hymn, the goal of the text (written in the 1990's) isn't to elaborate on God's grace. Instead, the text provides several interviews that Kozol conducts with individuals living in the poorest, most dangerous ghettos of New York City. The pictures of these neighborhoods are ones of constant violence, drug use, disease, poverty, and despair. Kozol highlights specifically the plight of children born into these neighborhoods. Frankly, it is a grim read.

The book's purpose, from my perspective, is for Kozol to push a fairly liberal-minded agenda through a guilt trip to the nation. It is full of phrases like our need for a "fair-minded society" and for the rich to "pay their fair share"; the one constant is the blame of government and society for allowing the ghettos to happen. He's probably right in many of his points; I don't know. I noticed something completely different in the text that I'm sure he didn't intend. In these interview with young and old alike, with those desperate and broken and hurting, the one constant seemed to be God.

Some examples:

- In regards to an older woman in the neighborhood: “Sometimes if I don’t see her for a while, I start to worry. During the winter you don’t see her much. I guess she stays inside. You feel concerned. . . There’s something about this lady that’s mysterious. She knows all the verses of the Bible. It makes everybody happy when they see her.” (45)

- Kozol asks one woman: “How do you remain so calm? What gives you strength?”

“I pray.”
“Does praying really ease the pain?”
“Yes. It does.” (105)

- “I’ve seen a generation die. Some of them was killed with guns. Some lost their minds from drugs. Some from disease. Now we have AIDS, the great plague, the plague of AIDS, the plauge that can’t be cured. It’s true I’ve seen it. I’ve been there. Ive been here in this building 24 years and I have seen it all.”

“How,” I ask her, “do you keep yourself composed?”
“I pray. I talk to God. I tell Him, ‘Lord, it is your work. Put me to my rest at night and wake me in the morning.” (169)

- Anthony, a 13 year old, recounting the story of Samuel: “I would be happy if God called on me,” he answers. “Happy? No! Let me revise that. I would be excited! I would say, ‘Here I am! I’m here, Lord! Over here! I’m down here in the garden.’” (215)

A pastor in the area has an idea why this is: “I believe that the wilderness is where God is found.”

Another pastor has this to say about those not in the wilderness, not in a desperate situation: "Those who have everything they want or need have often the least feeling for religion. The rich are very busy storing everything they can accumulate.” (78)

While I know that some will argue that the desperate are simply using religion as a crutch, that it's a creation of our minds in order to make us feel better and delude ourselves into making peace with the world, I don't think that's the case. C.S. Lewis wrote that, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." The more comfortable we make our lives, the less we see our own sin, our own weakness, and our need for the amazing grace of God. The poor down-trodden do not have this luxury.

I sadly see this in my own life. The more wealth I acquire, the less I talk to God about my money. The longer I'm married to a great woman, the more likely I am to think that I chose my spouse wisely or that I've put in the work to have a loving marriage. I forget that she is a gift from the ultimate Gift-Giver, that she was designed to partner with me. And is it terrible that the more my 4 year old learns about God and talks about Him, the less desperately I pray for her soul? I am ashamed of these facts, but I've committed to honesty in this blog. They seem relevant here.

I don't want the wilderness. I don't want the ghetto. And I certainly don't want poverty or disease or brokenness. I'm scared to death of all of those. But without them, am I broken enough to recognize amazing grace? I fear the answer.