Reconciling Places. Paul A. Hoffman

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СКАЧАТЬ was amazed: things like this don’t often occur in Rhode Island or New England, especially in public spaces. We see ourselves as the “frozen chosen,” proud for being curmudgeonly, thrifty, independent, intellectual, and perhaps even just a little bit superior.

      But that day rebutted the naysayers. Yes, America and many parts of the world are deeply polarized by issues of race, class, politics, economics, gender, education, location, and legal status, to name a few. Our divisions are real and grave and so must be addressed. However, so many of us are hungry to connect in meaningful and generous ways that seek to bridge the barriers separating us. From this, I surmise people are still attracted to good news, to a positive narrative: a story of hope that overcomes despair, of love that conquers hate, of a unity that does not impose uniformity but respects our differences. Americans are longing for this story to animate solutions that are constructive rather than destructive, to dignify and uplift rather than debase and tear down.

      We hunger for a vision of reconciliation, don’t we? And so the question is “how do we, together, bridge the chasms in our communities?” Or more pointedly, “how do we become and grow as reconcilers?”

      A white boy from Portland, Maine: My journey to the intersection of reconciliation and place

      My journey as a passionate, albeit imperfect, advocate for reconciliation, unity, and justice makes me chuckle because it was at first inauspicious. I was born ten weeks premature on February 8, 1977, at Fletcher-Allen Hospital, the teaching hospital of the University of Vermont. I weighed just two pounds, thirteen ounces. The doctors told my parents the odds of my survival were low, owing to my mother’s preeclampsia and birth complications. Kurt and Linda Hoffman prayed and believed their son had a purpose. After all, they named him after the apostle of New Testament fame (thanks, Mom and Dad, for setting unrealistically high expectations!). By God’s grace, I survived and started to grow and thrive: the expedition commenced.

      As life marched forward, my parents added my two sisters into the Hoffman family. Unfortunately, shortly after my younger sister was born, my parents divorced. My mother won primary custody of us and took a teaching job in Skowhegan, Maine. Second grade was a miserable year: I was the new kid in a small mill town where nobody new arrived and even fewer left. I recall during recess, a few of the children on the playground picked on me for being undersized (ironically the name “Paul” means “humble” or “small”) and poor. One experience painfully sticks out. As we approached the school’s annual Christmas gift exchange, my family lacked enough spare money to buy a new gift for my Secret Santa. So my mother and I made the best of a challenging situation: we wrapped a used Matchbox car discovered during a recent foray to a yard sale and spent hours crafting a homemade Santa sleigh out of candy canes, construction paper, stickers, and glitter. I thought it was a masterpiece. My classmate thought otherwise: upon opening the gifts, his brow furled and his lips curled in partially veiled incredulity and disgust: “Is this Matchbox car used? What’s this thing you made?” I remember my cheeks burning as waves of shame, rejection, and humiliation swept over me. It was the first time I learned that difference—whether intentionally or unintentionally—might be used to degrade and dehumanize others. In this case, my perceived poverty made me inferior. I was thankful that at the end of the school year we relocated to Orono, Maine.

      During my third and fourth grade years at Asa Adams Elementary School, I had two more experiences regarding “difference” that would further tilt the trajectory of my life toward reconciliation. The first centered on a schoolmate named Salvador Casañas Diaz, my first-ever best friend. Salvador (Sal) and I would go on wild adventures, spending countless hours racing Huffy BMX bikes around our idyllic college town, collecting bottles from the sidewalks and trash cans and then refunding them for a few dollars so we could buy bubble gum, gumdrops, and lollipops. But the biggest adventure took place indoors. I will never forget the first time I entered Sal’s apartment. The space was infused with the pungent scent of rice and beans simmering in a pot, the sound of Puerto Rican salsa music blaring from a boom box, and the strange intonations and cadences of Spanish floating about as his relatives bantered among themselves. I was intrigued: Sal’s world was unique and foreign. A new realization struck me: not every person ate the same food, spoke the same language, or listened to Casey Kasem’s Top Forty radio countdown. Different could be beautiful. I didn’t know it then, but my first cross-cultural (interracial) friendship would open me to the possibility and pursuit of many others in the years to come.

      A second transformative event involved Ryan Grant (not his real name), a school bully who happened to be older and bigger than me. One Saturday Sal and I raced our bikes to the playground at Asa Adams. We discovered a space devoid of children except for Ryan and his buddy pushing their girlfriends on the tire swings. He did not approve of our interrupting his private rendezvous and uncouthly demanded we leave immediately. Likewise, Sal and I did not appreciate his monopolizing this public space. We exchanged words, and he chased us off the playground. Sal and I fled the scene intoxicated by a combination of fear, anger, and adrenaline. This war wasn’t over. Shortly after that, I heard a rumor Ryan was visiting a friend at my apartment complex. I hopped onto my bike and sped to the area of the alleged sighting. It was he. If I recall correctly—and to my shame—I taunted him. Ryan cast a cold glare at me, I panicked, and fled the scene. Upon my entry into our apartment, my father quickly ascertained his son was frantically escaping conflict with a bully. With a piercing ferocity, Dad stared into my eyes and declared, “You can’t run away from that! You can’t let someone intimidate you. You must stand up for yourself.” With my weak legs trembling, Dad marched me outside to the front of our building, where Ryan was eagerly waiting. Without delay, Ryan and I began shoving each other, which quickly devolved into a muddy wrestling match. I could hear my father goading Ryan to “stand up and fight like a man.” Again, I tried to escape to the safe confines of my apartment, but Kurt Hoffman blocked me and said: “Go back, Son.” I am told (in truth I hardly remember a whit about my first and, at present, only fistfight) I punched Ryan in the face two times, and apparently shocked that I fought back, he staggered off.

      When pondering that incident, I struggle with my role in the conflict. Although Ryan was older and bigger (did I mention the size of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson!?) and thus our interactions were marked by a power differential, I did nothing to bridge that chasm. I failed to initiate a conversation with Ryan or ask my Dad to referee one. I know conflict is inevitable: it’s a consequence of human beings attempting to share limited resources and overlapping spaces. But when confronting power, what means should we deploy before physical force is brought to bear? How does reconciling work when an opponent is violent or unreasonable?

      With the benefit of hindsight, I find it fascinating that as a young child I was learning that class, race, gender, and power shape our differences—how we interpret them and respond to them. I also gleaned there exists, at the very least, three approaches to engaging difference: degradation, appreciation, and confrontation.

Consequently, these experiences catalyzed a lifelong quest to discover how I can join with others (including people of faith, practicing Christians, theology students, and ministry/nongovernment organization [NGO] leaders), to constructively address the differences in our homes, workplaces, churches, communities, and nation. Recently, four areas of my life have coalesced during this pursuit: my Christian faith, extensive world travel,4 my work as a pastor embedded in a particular place, and my doctoral studies in the areas of practical theology and urban mission. These factors have birthed a fresh model called reconciling places, which sits at the intersection of two critical ideas. Reconciling encourages Christians to live into their calling and identity as “peacemakers”:5 those who intentionally build bridges across ethnicity (race), class, and sex (gender) differences.6 Place refers to the embracing of one’s home, locale, or neighborhood, a particular social and cultural location. It is to be fully present, rooted, and embodied within a specific longitude and latitude.

      It must be said I come to you neither as an expert nor a hero. My desire is to serve as a guide on your reconciling journey. I’ve gathered some experiences and principles along my СКАЧАТЬ