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by david aupperlee
Many days my walk to work seems to resemble the
foreboding imagery before God spoke into that dark emptiness.
I watch heroin being injected and I see crack cocaine
being smoked; I watch street workers sell their bodies so they can feed
their addictions.
My workplace is in a Vancouver neighbourhood
called the Downtown Eastside, said to be the poorest postal code in Canada.
It’s notorious for being one of the most drug-ridden,
HIV/AIDS-stricken populations in the Western Hemisphere, infested with
mental illness, loneliness and physical pain.
I work with Jacob’s Well, a small faith
community located in this area. Our primary intention is to form
relationships with the people who live nearby. We invite folks to live life
with us as we eat together, worship, socialize and work.
Our work is ever-changing as the needs of the
community evolve, but two summers ago we started a routine of gardening in
the neighbourhood each Wednesday.
In July of 2005 we committed a small act of civil
disobedience and cut open a lock allowing our entry to an abandoned lot in
the area. The lot is of little use to its legal owners, and sat barren for
a number of years, functioning only as a waste receptacle that collected
tires, used needles, plastic bags, shag carpet, aluminum cans and paper
coffee cups.
We entered into this neglected piece of land and began
cleaning it up and taking care of it for the Owner (Psalm 24) and the owner
(clause 82.1, Vancouver property rights).
We laid down cardboard to suppress the weeds and
arranged for the city to bring about six dump truck loads of rich compost;
compliments of them.
Our first growing season in the garden was this past
summer and we were able to harvest around 75 crates of organic, locally
grown produce. It was distributed to our friends in the neighbourhood who
don’t have the means to buy organic produce. We were able to cook and
eat this food with our neighbourhood friends around the same table.
While the large harvest was inspiring and exciting, I
have been more impressed with the people who have entered our little
community garden and spoken creativity into it.
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Eli, a refugee farmer from Jamaica, taught us how to
prune our tomato plants; Will, who has recently become homeless, coached us
on taking care of our soil with natural, organic treatments; Pops imagined
with us how our garden should take shape in the future; Christine passes by
once in a while to look at and smell the flowers; Robert consistently comes
by to keep us company as we work in the garden.
This may seem fairly normal. Why get excited about
someone teaching us how to prune tomato plants? What’s thrilling
about someone stopping by to say hello?
It’s exciting because these interactions are
happening with people who are so often considered not normal. Abnormal.
They are considered the scum of society (according to the guy I
overheard on the bus last week).
As I walk to work each day, I pass dozens of people
hurting with mental illness and addiction. They don’t
considerthemselves worthy of much, because that is the message they are
receiving from the society around them. It’s exciting because the
creation does not communicate this message to the marginalized of society.
The apostle Paul tells us creation yearns for the day
when humanity is made right before the Lord (Romans 8:22). It is in the
garden that the barriers put between Eli, Will, Ben, Christine, Robert and
myself were broken down.
In these moments we are a people who depend on
God’s provision through the earth; we know that my monetary wealth
cannot make me enjoy the beauty of a rose any more than Christine, who has
no money. Creation is something we all have in common, despite our
differences; we all depend on and seek beauty in the natural world.
Taking care of creation is not just a command to tend
to what God has created, but also to make things right between fellow human
beings. The health of humanity is intimately connected to our right
relationship with creation.
The garden has somehow stripped away layers of shame,
poverty, addiction and mental illness that cover so many of the residents
of the Downtown Eastside to unveil the humanness beneath. It makes me
ponder how this lack of indignity is reminiscent of Adam and Eve’s
situation at the end of the second creation narrative: The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 2:25
David Aupperlee is a full time ‘urban
farmer’ at Jacob’s Well in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
He recently completed his MCS at Regent College.
Options Fall 2008
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