GOING HOME TO THE CITY

Jessica King

I’m a home-seeker—albeit one caught between the rush and promise of newness and the beauty of belonging. After the joy of finding my way home alone to a mud-brick house in Abidjan’s ghettos and the melancholic rootlessness I felt in Athens when I gave up on finding home there, I moved to Pittsburgh five years ago expecting to take the next plane out. So what happened? I feel more at home right here than I ever have.

“We’re a society of leavers,” a friend of mine sings, “caught between permanence and motion,” sings another. These Mennonite musician-muses proclaim that Mennonite society runs in the same ruts as the world. Our communities may be tighter than average, but the options are no fewer for those who look to leave home. I’m a young Mennonite and a member of an oversaturated, overmarketed, and overloaded generation whose choices outnumber our dreams.

But I’m fortunate; I happened into a community whose graciousness and continuity has somehow offered my paltry dreams a chance to take root. And here I am—unsoiled by the lure of outward trajectory, not conflicted by competing choices. I’m quickly realizing that, in the words of another friend, journeys can be measured in depth as well as distance. I see already the promise of growth springing from those roots I’ve dug into the mix of concrete, clutter, and patches of green here on this little grid of streets—my neighborhood in Pittsburgh.

Not so long ago—and not so far away—in Lancaster’s suburban heartland, I felt rootbound. I dreamed of exotic locales like Abidjan and Athens and ways to leave the place that surrounded me. Now I realize that from those carved-up farmfields and multiplying cul-de-sacs I took with me a revered sense of home—a respect for rootedness and an awareness that roots come to support trunks and branches.

This is rare, I’m finding. You could get on an interstate highway in Pittsburgh and drive to the next metropolitan area and, except for signage, not even know you’ve arrived in a different place. So many places in this country seem like no place in particular. Suburbia, the fastest growing demographic in the U.S., according to the new census, isn’t really a place—it’s more the idea of one. Cookie-cutter architecture and national retail chains make every place seem like the same place. It’s the antithesis of a Mennonite philosophy (some might argue theology) that stresses a connection to a place, a community of people, and a purpose.

My husband and I, both in our mid-twenties, both typified as Gen-Xers, recently bought a house four blocks from the voluntary service house we first called home in Pittsburgh—and where I now work. Since then, I’ve heard that 10 minutes of commuting each day reduces social networks and connections by 10 percent. I believe it. My daily five-minute walk increases the connectedness I feel to this place and these neighbors by that same 10 percent.

I’ve heard that one of our biggest challenges in this new millennium is to turn geography into community. That’s what’s so amazing about what I’m finding in Pittsburgh. For decades, Pittsburgh’s communities were geographically defined. Take the "hills" for instance: Polish Hill, The Hill District (an African-American neighborhood), Squirrel Hill (a Jewish enclave), and more.

In a similar way, a small group of young Mennos is now in the process of adopting a vision that takes turning geography into community in a new direction. We’re all transplants in this neighborhood—the first place we landed here in Pittsburgh. This growing community has created a demand for a new dimension of collective work. Our vision now includes long-term commitments like the acquisition and rehabilitation of the abandoned church on the corner as an anchor and hub for community strengthening initiatives.

This endeavor pins our diverse and individual journeys to a geographically specific vision for the restoration of our neighborhood. This vision—this commitment—is like buying a farm. You see, we all come from places like Lancaster and Goshen where farms outnumber street grids and people stay in the same place for generations. A friend writes, “Farms are to be permanent. . . . you take a long-term view; your children, do not forget, will one day live off these very same fields.” And I believe this trend toward a new form of rootedness lies in the very depths of our Mennonite souls.

Pittsburgh is a case study in rootedness for me—a place with a rust-belt urban history of social and economic decline. Longtime Pittsburghers are just realizing, it seems, that steel won’t come back after all. It’s front-page news every time the mayor proposes a new plan aimed at economic revitalization or attracting new residents.

Meanwhile cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are running out of room to house their young tech workers and their billion dollar start-ups. So what’s so compelling about Pittsburgh for a mobile young person who could live anywhere?

If people in Pittsburgh haven’t been forced out already, drawn to jobs in D.C. or the Sunbelt, you’ll find their roots are incredibly deep. Their connection to this place and the people who’ve lived here runs back generations.

Of course, for me it doesn’t hurt that there’s a close-knit group of Mennonites who also call Pittsburgh home. The Mennonites I call my friends derive meaning both from the identity that comes with cultural identification as Mennonites and from the connections they’ve made in the fertile soil of Pittsburgh.

The sense of identity and belonging is refreshing, at least for now. It’s a flat-out rejection of alienation—which is, more than anything else, the root of any so-called malaise, lack of ownership, and transient living that are neat little headings under which my generation is often categorized.

Belonging to and caring for places is something Mennonites often do well. Our farming heritage is more than land husbandry—it’s also cultivation of neighbors, community, church, and the common good. And despite the connectedness to land, Mennonite heritage has also taught us that stewardship is more important than ownership. Like the Israelites in Leviticus, we have heard God say, “the land is mine, and you come to it as aliens and tenants of mine” (Lev. 25:23).

Duane Friesen, the Mennonite author of Artists, Citizens, Philosophers: Seeking the Peace of the City, echoes this. He writes, “Christian existence is like being citizens and aliens at the same time.” In a sense, none of us is at home here. In Pittsburgh, Lancaster, anywhere.

This admission shouldn’t set us wandering, however. Our calling is to engage the places we live as the Israelites did in Babylon, “seek the peace of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer. 29:7).

Acknowledging that we don’t own the places we inhabit, or anyplace really, and that we and our neighbors are all resident aliens in God’s land can somehow humble us. It reminds us that we are to invest wherever God is; indeed, we are called to be home wherever we are, because we, our neighbors, the land, and the city all belong to God.

—Jessica King, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is Executive Director of Mennonite Urban Corps.