Knee-deep in renewal
A few months ago, Derrick Weston, assistant program manager of the 29th Street Community Center in Baltimore, led a group of high school students to an abandoned park in Harwood, a predominantly African-American neighborhood, where they picked up trash, repaired fences, and converted bookcases into raised gardening beds. They built up soil, dug holes, and carefully planted impatiens and coleus.
Some days the kids became frustrated, because the broken bottles, syringes, and wrappers that they had picked up seemed to reappear. They felt that their work was being disrespected. But they persisted.
“Planting flowers goes against a culture of death and violence. It pushes back against the corrosive effects of much of everyday life,” Weston wrote on his blog. The team pursued beauty in the midst of neglect. Weston became aware of God’s kingdom there on that small patch of land. “Because the kingdom of God is like yeast or a mustard seed or some other small thing that has rippling effects, perhaps our small actions will surprise us with exponential goodness.”
