Love and Protection

If we were speaking honestly I would tell you that I hate the fact that having a guard outside of our house every night makes me feel better. I would tell you that I struggle asking a boy to walk with me to the grocery store because it is unsafe for me to walk alone. I would tell you that what I have previously known of my independence is gone and that is the most aggravating thing about my life at this point. But on a daily basis I don’t speak honestly. I go about my business in the manner that we are told we must in order to be safe, but on the inside I am screaming with frustration and pain with and for the people who are putting us in this situation, the people who commit crimes around us every day and put our safety at risk.

If I have learned one thing about myself since I came to college it is that I love people. I struggle with a lot of people as well, but the majority of the time that struggle comes from a place of love. Most of all, I love the brokenness inside every human being. I love that we all make mistakes, treat people badly, and are still God’s children. I love that we change and grow, understanding our own downfalls and trying our hardest to become the best person we can be in spite of them. I love the good in seemingly bad or useless human beings. That love brought me to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and the Catholic Worker. That love brought me to South Africa. I am here falling in love with abused women who return to their husbands because that is the only life that they know, small children who are growing up in a society that is not giving them the skills necessary to impact and change their futures from the past of their parents, and teenage boys without an education or job who roam the streets of Cape Town committing crimes in order to support their families and/or their drug habits. People are easy to love when you can block out the evil that they have done. When you can’t see the cars they have hijacked, the drugs they have sold, or the women that they have raped.

But what happens to that love when those are the only visible actions? When I see the man who mugged a stranger walking home from the grocery store instead of the father of six living in a shack in Site C in Khayelitsha? When I see the young boy who jumped out fence at two in the morning instead of the grade 12 learner who worries about passing matric? I need to keep myself safe from the actions of others who seek to harm me, but I also need to love them for the human beings that they are. Where is the line? I am so afraid to protect myself for fear of forgetting to love those who I am protecting myself against. I need to be cautious of those around me, but I cannot stereotype and generalize. I need to be in a group when I leave my house, but I cannot let fear paralyze me so that I never step foot outside of our gates. I need to accept the fact that we have a guard stationed outside of our house in order to protect us, not to put us on a higher level than those committing the crime.

I feel called to work with those living in poverty, the homeless. I feel called to live in solidarity with those I work with by being completely entrenched in communities facing social issues such as gang violence and drugs. To follow my calling will be to put myself at risk. How do I both love people with all of my heart and protect myself from them?