A couple of weeks ago at Westpointe, I shared the story of Davona, the young woman who'd been a "fixture" for a while at The Lord's Rain but who recently had a baby: a confirmation that, even as we're surrounded by the death and despair on the Downtown East Side, God still wants LIFE to show forth and win out. Pastor Jon Boyd remarked afterwards that you hardly ever hear about good news out of the area -- the media and the activists who command attention know that bad news sells and good news is no news.
I may be a little late to the party with this one, but I discovered a TV series over the weeend that is the most realistic portrayal of the DTES I've seen in the six-plus years I've been ministering in the area. Actually, my mother-in-law in Toronto had been talking it up for some time: "The Beat", airing on OLN Saturdays at 10PM and Sundays at 9pm (Eastern), or online at http://www.oln.ca/details.php?id=99.
It's a reality show, focusing on Vancouver Police patrolling the Downtown East Side, dealing with the drug addicts and dealers, the prostitutes and the others generally labelled "street people". And rather than serving up the usual doom-and-despair that the popmedia give us about the DTES, I actually got a pretty good feeling from watching it. It has a very positive tone, showing police as compassionate individuals who truly care about the people they encounter on the DTES.
Talk about against-the-grain thinking!
I was reminded of the son of a friend of mine who's been on the VPD force for just about a year now, and whose hope has been to be assigned to the DTES.
The popmedia portrayal -- egged on by those "activists" -- is generally that cops are violent psychopaths who abuse poor, helpless vulnerable people. Of course, that's the image that gets the headline and the 40-second video clip. (Funny how scenes of police stopping to chat with a street person, helping them if they're lying on the street, or just keeping drug dealers off-balance, never seem to get "caught on tape".)
The episodes I caught last night went against-the-grain in another way: giving voice to the utter disdain the police have for Vancouver's "safe injection site". Many of you already know how I feel about it. It's a human experiment that has failed miserably, as evidenced by the fact that the situation of drugs, crime, homelessness and poverty has grown worse since InSite opened. A stat that came out from the police in last night's show was that, in 2001, the needle-exchange program dealt out about 180,000 needles; by 2009, that figure had ballooned to 3-million. Yet, as one of the cops said, getting anyone in the mainstream media to report a "contrarian" viewpoint is nearly impossible.
But it's like the little kid in "The Emperor's New Clothes": everyone's so blinded by the flash and glare of the myth that they can't see the truth. I've often said that Jesus is not about "harm reduction": He's about harm elimination. The solution involves getting people off drugs, rather than making it "healthier" for them, and you start by instilling the Hope of Christ in their lives. Things like InSite and needle exchanges make our jobs a lot tougher. But with God, nothing is impossible, and that's the good news.
(We note that the last two mayors who were ardent supporters of InSite only lasted one term, and they and the previous mayor -- who helped initiate it -- were all fragged by their own parties. Perhaps God is sending a political message?)
For all its grittiness and cinéma vérité, "The Beat" gives a good-news portrayal, showing up-close-and-personal what we deal with, without getting mired in the doom-and-despair thing. Well worth watching, and you might be moved, as I was, to fire off a letter of appreciation to OLN and to Galafilm, the producers.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Pickton and the coals of fire
If you want to stir up some heated discussion around The Lord's Rain, bring up the case of Robert "Willie" Pickton. I was out of town when the latest development came up -- the Supreme Court of Canada, upholding his convictions on six counts of murder and the Crown opted to stay the charges on 20 other counts -- so I haven't heard what's being said this time by the people who come in.
Certainly, the media coverage has created great opportunities for newspaper columnists to do the Righteous Outrage thing. They're great at that. One went absolutely over the top in expressing his fervent emotions about the heinousness of his crimes and -- rather fatuously, I thought -- called on Pickton to "man up" and tell what happened to the others. Another darkly hinted that "important people" might get tarnished if there were a public inquiry.
By way of a recap, Pickton was charged after literally dozens of women went missing from the Downtown East Side over a period of several years. The movements of the victims, many of whom were prostitutes and drug addicts, were eventually traced to a pig farm owned by Pickton and his brother in Port Coquitlam -- just east of Vancouver. Police eventually gathered the evidence that led them to Pickton. He was the only one charged. The details of the deaths that came out at trial can best be summed up with one word: horrific.
Some say that it's a relief that, without proceeding with charges in the other 20 cases (he's also suspected in about 20 missing-women cases on top of these 26) or holding a public inquiry into the case, we won't have to hear about the details all over again. Others say the families of the other 20 are being denied "closure" -- whatever that is -- because their loved ones' day in court won't happen. There is an underlying assumption that without a conviction, there will never be justice for the families of the victims.
As I say, Pickton has often been a subject of conversation around The Lord's Rain. Some of the people who come in knew the victims, and the recurring theme isn't so much the allegations of police inaction on the initial reports of missing people, but they do wonder how Pickton could have acted alone.
Shannon, whom I've mentioned before as the first woman I've known on the DTES who actually admitted to having been a prostitute, knew some of the victims and remarked recently how tremendously blessed she felt that she hadn't been one of them, herself. She went on to talk about what she'd like to do to him. Her talk was along the lines of "I'm not in favor of the death penalty, but ...", and I found it hard to disagree.
Then Jeff broke into the conversation. "Forgive him," he said.
Jeff is the sort of person who can provide exactly the word one needs to keep things in perspective, and this was one of those times. According to the word of God, that's exactly what this situation calls for: something to break the legalistic logjam and get away from the hand-wringing that the legal system has let people down. Jesus tells us flat-out that we have to forgive those who have wronged us -- even if that wrong is torturing and murdering someone we love. Bless those who curse you, He says; pray for those who despitefully use you. Proverbs 25:21-22 (echoed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 12:20) says that in so doing, we heap coals of fire on that person's head. Keep that in mind -- we'll come back to that shortly.
If we forgive someone, Jesus says, we'll be forgiven by God for the things we've done wrong. The act goes much deeper. Even though our fleshly desire is to gain revenge on that person, if we suppress that desire and follow God's will by forgiving, that releases God to work that will over the whole situation. We release the person from the burden of our hating them and release ourselves from that same burden.
OK, so the legal system has failed the families of those allegedly killed by Robert "Willie" Pickton. Another aspect of forgiveness is that you don't have to wait for a court of law to decide beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even if you only suspect someone wronged you, forgiving them still lets God get to work, either proving guilt or exposing the person who was really responsible. If the families of those victims were to declare that they forgive Pickton -- unconditionally and without reservation -- they might be surprised at what follows.
As for the "coals of fire" reference, I believe that has a number of meanings. You could say that the coals of fire represent the burning feeling of guilt and shame that comes when someone has taken the high road and forgiven someone else -- leading, presumably, to the one who's been forgiven reciprocating by doing whatever it is that God wants of them. But fire is often used to connote the Holy Spirit, so once again, forgiving someone touches them with the anointing they need. In the long run, justice and closure -- real justice and closure -- follow as the night the day.
Too often, our society mistakes "revenge" for "justice". To God, justice comes when His will is done. The world's approach has run out of avenues for the people affected by the Pickton case. Maybe it's time to look at God's approach.
Certainly, the media coverage has created great opportunities for newspaper columnists to do the Righteous Outrage thing. They're great at that. One went absolutely over the top in expressing his fervent emotions about the heinousness of his crimes and -- rather fatuously, I thought -- called on Pickton to "man up" and tell what happened to the others. Another darkly hinted that "important people" might get tarnished if there were a public inquiry.
By way of a recap, Pickton was charged after literally dozens of women went missing from the Downtown East Side over a period of several years. The movements of the victims, many of whom were prostitutes and drug addicts, were eventually traced to a pig farm owned by Pickton and his brother in Port Coquitlam -- just east of Vancouver. Police eventually gathered the evidence that led them to Pickton. He was the only one charged. The details of the deaths that came out at trial can best be summed up with one word: horrific.
Some say that it's a relief that, without proceeding with charges in the other 20 cases (he's also suspected in about 20 missing-women cases on top of these 26) or holding a public inquiry into the case, we won't have to hear about the details all over again. Others say the families of the other 20 are being denied "closure" -- whatever that is -- because their loved ones' day in court won't happen. There is an underlying assumption that without a conviction, there will never be justice for the families of the victims.
As I say, Pickton has often been a subject of conversation around The Lord's Rain. Some of the people who come in knew the victims, and the recurring theme isn't so much the allegations of police inaction on the initial reports of missing people, but they do wonder how Pickton could have acted alone.
Shannon, whom I've mentioned before as the first woman I've known on the DTES who actually admitted to having been a prostitute, knew some of the victims and remarked recently how tremendously blessed she felt that she hadn't been one of them, herself. She went on to talk about what she'd like to do to him. Her talk was along the lines of "I'm not in favor of the death penalty, but ...", and I found it hard to disagree.
Then Jeff broke into the conversation. "Forgive him," he said.
Jeff is the sort of person who can provide exactly the word one needs to keep things in perspective, and this was one of those times. According to the word of God, that's exactly what this situation calls for: something to break the legalistic logjam and get away from the hand-wringing that the legal system has let people down. Jesus tells us flat-out that we have to forgive those who have wronged us -- even if that wrong is torturing and murdering someone we love. Bless those who curse you, He says; pray for those who despitefully use you. Proverbs 25:21-22 (echoed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 12:20) says that in so doing, we heap coals of fire on that person's head. Keep that in mind -- we'll come back to that shortly.
If we forgive someone, Jesus says, we'll be forgiven by God for the things we've done wrong. The act goes much deeper. Even though our fleshly desire is to gain revenge on that person, if we suppress that desire and follow God's will by forgiving, that releases God to work that will over the whole situation. We release the person from the burden of our hating them and release ourselves from that same burden.
OK, so the legal system has failed the families of those allegedly killed by Robert "Willie" Pickton. Another aspect of forgiveness is that you don't have to wait for a court of law to decide beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even if you only suspect someone wronged you, forgiving them still lets God get to work, either proving guilt or exposing the person who was really responsible. If the families of those victims were to declare that they forgive Pickton -- unconditionally and without reservation -- they might be surprised at what follows.
As for the "coals of fire" reference, I believe that has a number of meanings. You could say that the coals of fire represent the burning feeling of guilt and shame that comes when someone has taken the high road and forgiven someone else -- leading, presumably, to the one who's been forgiven reciprocating by doing whatever it is that God wants of them. But fire is often used to connote the Holy Spirit, so once again, forgiving someone touches them with the anointing they need. In the long run, justice and closure -- real justice and closure -- follow as the night the day.
Too often, our society mistakes "revenge" for "justice". To God, justice comes when His will is done. The world's approach has run out of avenues for the people affected by the Pickton case. Maybe it's time to look at God's approach.
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