Crime and Connection

Connection…thanks to technology, we are constantly connected to the world. Unfortunately, thanks to the the superficial connectedness, we have never been as disconnected.

I went to visit someone in hospital the other day. I was a bit early, so I had to wait in the lounge. Next to me sat a family with a father and his son and daughter; aged about eleven and thirteen. In the thirty minutes that we waited, they didn’t say a single word to each other; but all three of them were glued to their phones.

If you stay in South Africa, the odds are you will be on the receiving end of crime sometimes. Most of us have had a phone, wallet, computer or bicycle that we lost because of petty crime. Some of us have been in the position to be on the receiving end of more serious crimes, too.

Many neighborhoods have their own Community Policing Forum, and these forums often really make a big difference when it comes to fighting crime as a neighborhood. If I join the Community Policing Forum, it forces me to get to know the people that stay in my neighborhood.

The past week, I witnessed some things that really made me think about community and connectedness. I was driving with my friend when we saw a young man running from the police. Without much hesitation, my friend was in hot pursuit. Someone else had caught the culprit, and when the police arrived, they gave him a good tongue lashing, a few slaps in the face and a pretty good dose of pepper spray in the eyes. They told him that they didn’t want to see him in the area again. He was probably a previous offender. I really didn’t enjoy witnessing that. Sure enough, it’s not the police’s job to grow a relationship with this young, obviously homeless man; but if the police won’t, then who will?

In a previous blog, I wrote about a boy in the inner city of Pretoria who was addicted to drugs. He got arrested the other day for possession of dagga, and is awaiting trial in prison. I joined my friend who is working with street kids on a full-time basis, and we went to go visit him. There were so many mothers with their young children in the waiting room, waiting to see their husbands and fathers who were behind bars. Next to me sat a young mother with her one-year old baby; trying to get her baby girl to recognize her father at the other side of the bullet-proof window. There is a possibility that she will grow up without a father. Apart from us, no one came to visit the boy in prison. Not even a mother or a father, a brother, a granny or an uncle. No one cared for this boy.

Christ is constantly reconciling the world to Himself. Our God is a God of intimate connection. Where there is disconnection, His wish is to reconnect.

Of course, assisting my community to help fighting crime is a noble thing to do. In my mind, it can be compared to picking the bad fruit from a tree. But the problem with bad fruit is not the fruit itself; there are other underlying factors that need to be addressed to ensure that the bad fruit that the tree produces don’t stay bad.

In a world aching for healing; a world where children grow up without a loving mother- or father figure, we are called to connect the dots, even if the dots won’t naturally connect with mine.

Start small; make sure that you are intimately connected with your family, your neighbors and people in your immediate vicinity. But don’t stop there! God has called us to be in the ministry of reconciliation, because we are privileged to be reconciled with Christ.