Paige Benton Brown, of Westend Community Church in Nashville, tells a story about her own health in which the doctor discovered a heart issue she didn’t know about. Not grasping the gravity of the situation, she said, “Ok, so I’ve got this heart issue, but everything else looks relatively healthy, right?”

The doctor replied, “I’m afraid you don’t understand. Without heart health, there is no other health.”

That’s how crime in Memphis feels right now.

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Aside from updates on our beloved Grizzlies and Tigers, which strike me as somewhat disconnected from everything else going on in the city, there seems to be very little happening without the shadow of crime impacting it. Criminal activity is causing everything else to grind to a near halt, and this is terrible for the flourishing of our city. Because without crime health, there is no other health.

So, as I usually do, I’ve been looking to the Bible for wisdom. Right out of the gate in Genesis 3, God asks Adam the question, “Where are you?” Adam replies, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” Only two pages later, just after the first murder in human history, God asks a similar question of Cain when he says, “Where is your brother?” Cain’s infamous response: “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Twice in a row, God uses the word where, but neither time is he looking for coordinates. Both questions are diagnostic. Both inquiries are stories of God employing a physical location to reveal a heart orientation.

And he is using the city of Memphis to perform the same surgery on me.

That blasted “where” question is doing its work as it unearths some junk that has apparently been dripping and oozing in the darker corners of my heart. With each news report that comes out and with each friend who is impacted, the heat cranks under me, and it manifests some patterns in my thinking that require some pruning.

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As the undercurrent of crime colors our days, I find myself giving into the temptation to find nearly nothing good about this place, to roll my eyes at the very air we breathe. I’ve been guilty of letting hopelessness creep in, assuming evil has won and everything the Bible says about Jesus overcoming the world (John 16:33) must be true — everywhere but here.

It’s become way too easy to look at strangers — say, fellow drivers — with knee-jerk disdain instead of sympathy or grace, assuming they’re thinking only of themselves, and acknowledging that as a license for me to do the same.

I find myself considering whether we should leave Memphis, throw in the towel, give up on this city. Maybe we should take our kids somewhere safer, try to start over, give somewhere else a shot.

And my husband Jim and I have had some honest conversations about our family’s future here. We’ve talked and talked (and talked some more) about what is most important to us as we consider our home and our hometown. That same low burn of constant crime that’s bringing to light the dark spots in my soul is also clarifying our priorities as we think through the backdrop of life ahead.

Jim and I both have long and deep roots here, and Memphis has borne witness to our family stories. For instance, we both took our first breath at Baptist Hospital downtown — the one that’s gone now. One generation back, my dad played catcher with the Astromites little league baseball team at Millington High School, just like so many boys who grew up in the sandlot era. A couple decades earlier, Jim’s grandfather oversaw maintenance at the Mid-South Coliseum. Before that, my great grandfather ran a speakeasy in Midtown and regularly served Boss Crump as a customer.

Letter to the Editor: Thanks for Candace Echols’ columns on faith

Can you leave a place that has cradled your family for more than 100 years because it’s getting harder to stay? I’m finding that a relationship that is braided this tightly is not surrendered simply. This is not, actually, the easiest place in the world to give up on.

In light of that, it shouldn’t be surprising that my own health seems to mirror the health of the city in which I live. The more crime seems to plague us, the more anxiety impacts my body and mind. With every smack that my hometown receives, I feel the sting. Memphis and me — we’re all tangled up in the best and worst of ways.

But it’s precisely because of the richness of my history with this place that my hometown serves as a worthy litmus test for God to use in determining the health of my heart. That’s the reason for all this angst. My coordinates really don’t matter as much as they seem to when I’m looking at the Realtor app.

What matters, in my day-to-day life, is that I learn to see the people in front of me with the same grace I want from them. I can learn to trust the long-term truth of the Bible when things appear hopeless today. I can relate to those who have been living like this far longer than I have and find ways to ease their burdens in the future. And I can ask God to help me work out my feelings about this maddening place, as we stay and try to help the city we love so much.

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[Jesus said], “ I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33

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