CITY OF HOPE

He is awakened into a small warm room in a home built as part of the new housing community on Clay St. in the old 4th ward.  It is early spring, and he sits at the table to eat breakfast.  His father reads from a book he has heard every morning since he could remember, a book that tells the story of a new creation that will one day be realized but that the city of Annapolis is experiencing in tangible ways today.  His father was unemployed but has now started a small construction business with help from the city who is offering micro-loans for entrepreneurial initiatives and in return, those businesses offer a certain amount of hours to help renovate residents’ homes who are in need.  The young man walks out onto a newly paved Clay St. with a sense of anticipation.  There are restored 1930’s lampposts, and the homes are painted with bright blues and greens.  This morning, like every morning, his stomach is filled with breakfast as his backpack is filled with homework that was completed the night before.  

There is no fear in his heart as he leaves his home because the crime that once ravaged the streets has been replaced with shalom.  The corner drug dealers have been replaced with fruit stands and the men who used to linger on the streets like a disease have been restored, some now employed by his father.  The young man walks to school, and as he crosses West Street, he sees people in generous conversation from different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, sharing stories, sharing life.  Smiles light their faces; love, joy, and peace mark their words.  The air is clearer than it has ever been, and the waterways surrounding the city of Annapolis are cleaner than there is record of.  As the young man walks to school, neighbors greet him, men and women walking to work, and many are on bikes.  And then he hears a familiar name, a name he has heard often since he was a child and his father returned home after previously abandoning his wife and children.

Those days are long gone, and that name he hears brings a sense of awe and wonder to his imagination, a feeling of deep strength within him and to the social imagination of the city.  This name is both whispered and spoken out, the young man can’t walk but a few blocks without hearing talk of this person.  He walks down West Street and sees the businesses that have been refurbished, flourishing, and contributing to a thriving economy.  He sees his friends from Murray Hill, who too, are on their way to the local Elementary school.  Enrollment has skyrocketed and diversified over the past ten years, and the educational system is thriving.  The young man walks around church circle to peer down Main Street and see the bay sparkling with the morning sun.  The city has been transformed, and the young man’s story is just one example.  But what has happened?

What has happened is that the name of this man of wonder and of power, whose name the young man heard on the street, has taken up residency in the city.  The city has recognized his presence, and he is no ordinary person, the people speak of him as a king, and with him has arrived a kingdom, and that kingdom is now, being established in the city.  But the king did not move into the city alone.  He brought his friends with him- they arrived with sincerity, love, strength, and energy from the Spirit of the king. And everything has changed.  Impossible things have happened, things that no one might dream of, miracles, some say.  The air and waterways are just one example.  Couples who were once divorced are back together, there is an attitude of charity and hope in the atmosphere, in fact, you could say the entire atmosphere of the city has changed.

Hope has replaced despair, what was once segregated is now united, what was once lost has been returned, and that which was dead has been imparted with a second life.  There are other stories, too, stories of healing- physical, emotional, and mental restoration, after years of suffering.  There is goodwill in the hearts, minds, and bodies of people.  It feels like everything is being regenerated rather than decaying.  The city is out of debt, and businesses are having unprecedented success.  New experimental forms of art-making and commerce are being developed in collaboration both for the sake of beauty and for the good of the city.  There is a level of faith, goodwill, and unity that no one thought possible; peoples’ lives are tangibly different all because this king, whom they call Jesus, has taken up residence in the city.

And the friends of this Jesus seem to be more every day, the news of his arrival is being told and shown everywhere.  And as people receive this good news, some are moved to tears, others are filled with joy, and others have radically forgiven everyone that ever did anything wrong to them.  His followers are free people, people who seem to live, at times, in a different realm, residents of a different city.

These followers are constantly meeting together in smaller communities- in homes, coffee shops, bars, parks, and storefronts.  These communities come together for their lives to be formed around the king and to plot good, to reach the people of their neighborhoods with the hope of the king.  And they are relentless, their intent and pursuit is beyond ordinary, and they will stop at nothing to serve, heal and reach out to others.  And everyone can see it.  They seem to be a picture of what it means to be fully human, filled with life and love, and no one can deny their words, deeds, and strength.  Their dream, they say, is to show and tell everyone they know about Jesus.  Why would they do this? 

They say it is because they have been changed by Jesus himself and now live in freedom and forgiveness.  “What else can we do but share it with everyone they meet?” they say.  Some serve at the local homeless shelter, some walk the streets and pray, some have dinner parties that express the love of this king, and others have game nights because laughing is part of his kingdom. Some simply open their homes as places of peace to serve their neighbors.  They share meals, they share life, they share stories of Jesus, and they pray.  And oh, how they pray!  When they pray it is audacious the things they ask for, and yet many of these very things are happening. 

A new normal, a winsome reality that is stunning, has been ushered into the city.  In fact, there are even some who don’t believe, they hate what is happening and often plot ill against these followers.  When that happens, the king’s friends don’t scoff, they don’t slander, they don’t isolate or gossip, they don’t fret or become defensive, they don’t become bitter, insecure or fearful, they don't argue or rant or accuse.  Rather they love in the face of adversity, they serve despite being yelled at, they bless instead of curse, and they continue to show and tell of the king’s divine love.  It would be almost impossible to number the king’s followers and their communities because there seems to be one in every neighborhood and on every block.  They are abandoned to this King and what the king is plotting next.  Their numbers grow without explanation, some have said the city is being awakened, whatever it is, the city has never experienced this kind of transformation before.

The sun is going down, the young man comes in from a game of street football, his father gives him a hug and a kiss and puts him to bed.  “Tonight, let’s pray for our neighbors, that they, too, might know our king”, his father says.  The young man prays with wind in his heart, and his father wells up with tears of joy because he considers the day that what his son is tasting in the city now will be visceral forever.  His father knows these things because he met this king Jesus a few years earlier.  That is when everything changed for him when he turned from his self-centered ways and returned home to his wife and children.  Now he too has a vision, a dream of flourishing for his neighborhood, and he is being encouraged and equipped by the King's friends, and now, even his own home has become one of these communities, of hope.

Joey Tomassoni

Annapolis, MD
November 2011