I wrote this in September 2015 and it first appeared as a chapter in The Soul of the City: Mapping the Spiritual Geography of Eleven Canadian Cities – edited by Len Hjalmarson.
As I write this, arguably the most iconic symbol of the City of Victoria, BC is not the famed Empress Hotel (with its noted ‘high tea’), nor is it the manicured Butchart Gardens north of the city, nor is it the Inner Harbour, with tall ships and a 41 million dollar yacht docked there. Presently, the image that dominates the national news regarding Victoria is the homeless encampment, wedged between the nondescript Provincial Court building and the grand, towering neo-gothic edifice of Christ Church Anglican Cathedral in the city’s downtown.
‘Tent City’ (known to its residents as “Super Intent City”) – is an ironic triumph which has grown exponentially in the past year. It started as a few dozen homeless campers, tired of shelter shortages and being kicked out of parks at 7am (by-laws at least allow the homeless to camp there until then), while at the same time hoping to make a statement about the lack of provincial and federal support for housing. Since then, it has evolved into a mini-city-within-a-city; with infrastructure built of discarded shipping pallets, spare wood, tents, tarps, outhouses and even wifi access. It is decorated with spray painted banners and expressions of grassroots art.
Initially welcomed by the neighbouring Anglican Cathedral (and its private school) and with its presence defended by the Courts in a legal ruling, both the Cathedral and Courts have since moved to disavow themselves of the presence of this community of squatters. In public perception, Tent City has become more and more of a nuisance to its neighbours. However one might view the politics and humanity of that situation, the Cathedral and the Courthouse can be seen as a microcosm of the landscape of this city, where the liberal elites of institutional Victoria, be they religious or civic, find themselves uncomfortably lifted above Tent City — those very literally the population of the marginalized, stuck there in the in-between.
When operating at its best, Tent City has developed a small, evolving democratic structure that happens in the form of regular meetings, which gathers residents together to talk about conflicts, hopes, ideals, safety, ideas and cares. Sometimes there are laments, prophetic critiques, and occasionally even prayers.
When I’ve attended the Tent City circle meetings, I’ve questioned the sustainability of this group in light of leadership issues, not to mention the pressure from both the inside and the outside. Over the months there have been very public issues of violence and drug abuse. Yet in spite of that, Tent City could be seen as a small piece of the God’s shalom in the love and hope that I’ve witnessed. I’m not sure how many of the folks who live there would identify as Christian (there are at least a few) but it sure does feel like ‘church’ in the best sense of the word: authentic, vulnerable, messy and hopeful.
* * *
Victoria, British Columbia is a town of paradoxes and contrasts.
Victoria was named, of course, after the 19th century British monarch. It is the capital of British Columbia, though it is often dwarfed in myriad ways by the much larger city of Vancouver, only 100 kilometres (a 1.5 hour ferry or short airplane ride) away. It is Canada’s 15th largest municipality, but the actual city of Victoria, as opposed to the larger Greater Victoria region, only has a population of 80,000 people (more on this later).
In spite of being the legislative capital of the vast Province of BC, there is still some almost mystifying sense of isolation in Victoria. Victorians do, after all, proudly live on an island, albeit a rather large one; some 460KM from top to the southern tip, where Victoria is situated. When it comes to culture, employment, food prices, and the like, that 100KM stretch of ocean is acutely felt. In spite of that, the political and ecclesial currents which come from the more culturally endowed lower mainland (i.e. Vancouver and environs) do certainly affect Victorians.
Victoria is part of a larger bioregion known as “Cascadia”; an area that takes in the so-called “Pacific Northwest” of the USA as well as some of the Canadian lower mainland. Journalist Douglas Todd claims that, culturally speaking, this region is noted for “anti-institutional attitudes, often-bewildering ethnic pluralism, somewhat European sensibilities, liberal-left leanings… artistic and literary ties to a sacred sense of place” (Todd 9).
I would posit that that’s a pretty good description of Victoria as a whole, with the possible exception of ethnic pluralism, which, though present, is less diverse than, say Vancouver. Having said that, the more “Queen Victoria” (i.e. British, colonial) side of Victoria certainly comes into some tension with how Todd describes the region; and this tension resonates into many facets of life here.
Many of its residents refer to Vancouver Island (where Victoria is situated – and not to be confused with the city of Vancouver) as ‘paradise’, a place of ‘the good life’; and this is for good reason – at least in terms of weather. “We’re like Vancouver here, but with less rain; we have green most of the year – and snow is rare”, a local told me when I first moved here. They have, for the most part, been correct.
Victoria is fast growing into a thriving tourist hub – and has become home to Canada’s busiest cruise ship port-of-call, with 533,000 passengers welcomed during the 2105 season[1]. This, of course, changes life for residents, rich and poor alike – especially in the tourist season. In the last decade, Victoria’s most-vulnerable residents have been gradually moved out of the tourist sections of town – and homeless shelters have been re-located in Rock Bay and further up Pandora Ave.
So, yes, there are shadows to this paradise.
Victoria was referred to Canada’s second most dangerous city (after Prince George, B.C.) in a 2010 Macleans’ article[2]. Victorian apologists would note that the stats are skewed, since most so-called ‘Victorians’ (or those who consider themselves as such) live in the municipalities of Greater Victoria; those being Oak Bay, Saanich and Esquimalt – which, they claim, are much safer than “Victoria” proper, which has a much smaller population, more centralized social services – and thus a higher crime rate.
There is a relatively large homeless population here, in part because of the milder weather. The Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness notes that 1725 unique individuals used emergency bed in one of Victoria’s shelters in 2014, and that was before there was a tent city; and this doesn’t take into account those living in parks. 50% of those are identified as part of the Indigenous Community. That report also noted also that Victoria is the second least affordable housing market in Canada[3] – a situation which is intensifying as housing prices soar.
Year-round walks downtown in the very early mornings will find many people sleeping in doorways or in parks. The Mustard Street Church (Baptist); which also runs the foodbank for all of Vancouver Island, and Our Place (United Church) are two of the larger ecclesial responses, in addition to a presence from the Salvation Army and smaller organizations such as the Dandelion Society and Street Hope – both grassroots efforts founded by Christians. Threshold Housing Society, which focuses on housing at-risk youth, housed 52 of the over 200 homeless youth in Victoria last year. Threshold was started as a response from parishioners to homeless youth hanging about the lawns of the Anglican Cathedral long before Tent City. There are also many important ‘secular’ advocacy groups, including the Cool Aid Housing Society and Pacifica Housing. There is some division between these groups, a tension intensified by the decision by the Provincial Government to bring in the Portland Hotel Society, a Vancouver-based non-profit to assist with the housing crisis.
In contrast to what I’ve thus far emphasized, the main public reputation of Victoria has, for decades, been “newlywed, nearly dead and garden beds” so the popular phrase goes. There is still some element of truth to that – again, one can take in the famed high tea ($75 / per person) at the Empress or casually wander at Butchart Gardens as remaining symbols of this culture and, yes, there are still many who move here to retire. However, as a recent Toronto Star article pointed out, this is rapidly changing, or perhaps balancing a bit as:
…people in their 20s and 30s are moving here now, drawn by a booming tech sector. And the flock of retirees is getting younger — 50s are the 30s. Sure, you can still pick up a stack of Irish linens or get your age spots removed, but you can also pop into Smoking Lily for a periodic table silkscreened on a dress and find plenty of grooming shops for the ubiquitous gnome beards. [4]
So the web of human cultures in Victoria is exactly that – a diverse tapestry; shifting and complex, perhaps even more rapidly than other mid-sized Canadian cities. Add into that mix the provincial governmental culture, a booming University (and several other post-secondary educational institutions) and a relatively small space and population. All of this forms a compelling landscape within which to imagine God’s vision of shalom breaking through in signs and symbols in this place.
* * *
When I moved here four years ago, I found it socially and economically difficult to adjust to life for our young family. I’ve had many conversations with younger folks, some who are professionals, who have confided that they are having a hard time making ends meet. Many of the parents at the school my kids attend work for minimum wage (currently $10.45 – the lowest in all of Canada’s provinces). Many professionals that I know take on multiple jobs. For those who are economically poorer, many live in social housing in order to make ends meet. In a town where skilled minimum wage jobs abound, the Greater Victoria Planning Council has noted that:
… the wage needed to cover the costs of raising a family in Greater Victoria is $20.05 per hour. This is the 2015 Greater Victoria living wage rate, the hourly wage that two working parents with two young children must earn to meet their basic expenses (including rent, child care, food and transportation), once government taxes, credits, deductions and subsidies have been taken into account.[5]
Many younger folks are increasingly supported by parents, if not economically, then in other tangible ways such as child support or housing. Jobs in government and education are the main exceptions to low wages, but I am aware of people in those usually well-paid spheres who also struggle with Victoria’s cost of living.
* * *
Victoria is a place of stunning natural environment. There’s the ocean, the beaches, the mountains on the horizon, the network of bike trails, the lakes and trails. Even within the city one can’t help notice the connection between the transcendent natural environment and the noted secularity of the place. With that emphasis on recreation, it’s not surprising that, statistically-speaking, relatively few Victorians engage traditional religion. If Victorians of European descent were to have a dominant religion, one might suggest it is a religion of leisure, rooted in the natural environment, sometimes mixed in with a vague and esoteric mix of vague eastern religious sensibilities. Related to this, the 2011 National Household Survey notes that Greater Victoria has 146,000 Christians and then 172,000 who list as “No Religious Affiliation”[6]
A passing glance at a community board in one of the numerous coffee shops in this city will quickly give one the spiritual temperature here; where chakra belly dancing workshops hang alongside contemplative retreats. One could argue that the sheer number of these events betrays a collective longing for something that has been lost in the shift from traditional and collective religious forms (embodied in First Nations and Euro-Tribal/Christian traditions) to the more ‘spiritual but not religious’ mentality. James K.A. Smith summarizes the Canadian Roman Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor by saying that:
…we live in a brass heaven, ensconced in immanence. We live in the twilight of both gods and idols. But their ghosts have refused to depart, and every once in a while we might be surprised to find ourselves tempted by belief, by intimations of transcendence… even as faith endures in the secular age, believing doesn’t come easy (Smith 3-4)
Many of us on the West Coast engage these intimations of transcendence as our primary form of spirituality, though the echoes of older ways still exist in reminders, such as our Christian architecture (whether the buildings remain in church use or not) or in the echoes of First Nations cultures which are present in many ways, though they are effectively muted by the trauma of colonization.
A walk through downtown Victoria will find a plethora of diverse Christian symbols, some intact (I’m thinking here of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian, Glad Tidings Pentecostal, Central Baptist, Christ Church Cathedral, St. Andrew’s RC Cathedral, First Met United, as examples – there are many more) – and others relegated to secular prominence, such as the Conservatory of Music, once a Methodist house of worship where Rev. Thomas Crosby, who I’ll write about later, was ordained as a minister. In secular Victoria, many of these intact Christian institutions, whatever their theological stripe may be, are struggling to (re)determine their primal mission and find fiscal and communal sustainability.
At least in the downtown core, there are far fewer prominent symbols of First Nation’s cultures, save except on the Museum lawn. Historical pictures show Songhees and Esquimalt longhouses and ceremonies in the inner harbour and within in the inner city. The long and painful legacy of colonialism, in which the mainstream Christian Churches played a willing role, has marginalized architectural expressions of First Nations spirituality to reserves, which sit well at the edges of the municipalities of Esquimalt, Saanich and Brentwood Bay.
The contrasts continue: The Anglican Cathedral, with its towering neo-gothic spires and the flags of fusiliers and the Hudson’s Bay Company, feels like a haunted museum of such colonialism, with an occasional concert or tribute to the Queen; all at a time when Victoria’s left-leaning Mayor Lisa Helps refuses to take the traditional vow of allegiance to the Queen, wanting instead to emphasize that Victoria is, in fact, the traditional lands of the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations. It is a common West Coast practice, especially by mainstream civic, educational and religious organizations – to begin a time of gathering with an acknowledgement of the traditional lands of the First Nations who reside here. The painful ghost of colonialism is never distant.
For example, Mount Douglas, just north of the city, was named after a noted 19th century Governor who established the precursor to the Anglican Cathedral. Douglas had a mixed relationship with First Nations peoples. As a symbol, then, the name cuts two ways. Thus the movement to change the mountain back to its traditional SENĆOŦEN name of PKOLS. Victoria is a place haunted by tradition, and particularly the tensions between Euro-Christian people and First Nations.
One of the great mythological Christian figures of Vancouver Island is the Rev. Thomas Crosby (1840-1914) – who called himself a ‘missionary to the Indians [sic] of British Columbia’. In his book “Among the An-Ko-Me-Nums”, he writes of a revival in 1872:
The services at Victoria were first held on the reservation and then transferred to a building in the city which had been used as a bar-room. On a Sabbath morning in October ’72 Elizabeth Deex, a chieftess of the Tsimshian nation… by the preaching of the Word was brought under deep conviction for sin… That meeting proved to be the beginning of a revival which lasted continuously for nine weeks and resulted in the conversion of upwards of forty natives. (Crosby 235-236)
The story, sadly, goes on to tell that Crosby managed to alienate Deex, who became disillusioned by his racism – he passed over trained First Nations (Christian) teachers in favour of Caucasian ones, as well as Crosby’s resistance to traditional First Nations ceremonies such as weddings and the Potlach.
The residential schools are perhaps the most explicit expression of this type of supremacist colonial attitude. Church and State partnered in an experiment to create ‘good Christian Canadians’ by removing First Nation’s children from their home contexts and then systematically obliterating their culture, language and traditional ways. This history haunts the spiritual landscape of Victoria. The abuse experienced by First Nation peoples’, most often at the hands of Christian clergy, laity or religious continues to play out in the lives of First Peoples, as well as in the relationships between First Nations -traditional, Christian, and otherwise – and Caucasian people – especially Christians.
One can only wonder how different the relationships with First Nations and the secular landscape of Victoria might have been if Crosby and the other settler Christians had overcome their Euro-centric and racist impulses. As I ponder the possibility of shalom here, I can’t help but wonder if it’s not too late for reconciliation? Perhaps Victoria is now at a pivotal time for deepening relationships between the Euro-Tribal Churches and the First Peoples.
One of the bright lights in the spiritual landscape is the small attempts at such relationship building, many of which operate under the radar of the larger institutions and some which come from their very heart, such as a recent walk from the north of Vancouver Island, to Victoria by the current Anglican Bishop, The Right Rev. Dr. Logan McMenamie, seeking forgiveness and reconciliation. I would posit that if there is hope for a deep, biblical sense of reconciliation then this relational work of listening, surrender and prayer, embodied in such a walk, must continue and deepen.
* * *
Victoria is a landscape of ecclesial, educational, cultural and civic fragmentation. Since this chapter is about the soul of this city, let’s start with ecclesial and move out from there.
The libertarian, anti-institutional frontier influence that Douglas Todd referred to makes Victorians a group of non-joiners. Even those who do join seem to keep splintering. Here, even the Unitarians have both a ‘lay-led’ congregation and a more ‘traditional’ clergy-led one.
My own ‘tribe’ of the Christian Church, the Anglican one, has been fragmenting for nearly a century and a half here. Anglicans have long considered ourselves able to hold in tension varying liturgical practices, theologies, and emphases. In Victoria we have Anglican Catholic, Traditional Anglican, Anglican Network all of whom splintered off of the more ‘mainstream’ Anglican Church of Canada; for the ordination of women, a new prayer book or issues surrounding the inclusion of LGBTQ2 persons, respectively.
The first splinter happened here in Victoria back with so-called Schism of 1874 – when Dean Edward Cridge, then of the Anglican Cathedral led an evangelical ‘low church’ walk-out and subsequently built Church of Our Lord down the hill. The United Church of Canada held its most divisive national General Council in Victoria in 1988 – where they affirmed a commitment to the inclusion of LGBTQ2 people at all levels of that Church, including clergy. Shortly after, many of the evangelical and charismatic United Churches split off – many joining other evangelical churches or, alternately, starting splinter denominations.
As mainstream churches split and schism there are over 30 relatively-new Church Plants in Greater Victoria; again a large number given the population base. Many of these are from these splinter groups of Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Anglicans, Congregationalists (United), Reformed and Mennonite groupings who feel that the established versions of these Christian traditions aren’t engaging secular Cascadian culture enough and are resting on their laurels as they decline.
The famous Canadian Painter, Emily Carr, early in her life attended Church of Our Lord (the Anglican Cathedral split-off) as well as a Presbyterian Church, before then becoming a Methodist (even then Victorians were non-joiners, I guess!). She wrote this in “The Book of Small”:
The little Church [Church of our Lord] smiled up from the mud flats, the Cathedral frowned down, austere and national, and Victorians chose high or low, whichever comforted them the most. (Carr 112)
Over one hundred years later, at least for those who have that privilege of choice – it seems that little has changed.
* * *
Shifting to education for a moment, Victoria’s education systems reflect a similar tendency to division and fragmentation. There are a good number of elite, British-style private schools, religious schools, and specialty schools catering to the eco-conscious or the Montessori impulse, as examples. There is, as in much of Canada, a public school system; which itself has divisions between ‘traditional’ schools, conventional and French immersion streams. Some parents, especially those coming out of either ecological or evangelical Christian culture (or both, in some cases) follow the more libertarian ‘do-it-yourself’ Cascadian impulse and lean towards homeschooling.
My own experience from working in youth ministry is that the cultural and economic separatism between the various private and public systems (and home schoolers) creates an economically two (or more) tiered system in Victoria which in many ways mirrors the fragmentation that I’ve spoken about in the Churches.
One final anecdote on fragmentation: I once made a comment to a long-time resident about the lack of cultural diversity in Victoria. She replied: “You’ve never shopped at Wal-Mart, have you?” She was right. To another friend I made a similar quip. Her response: “Unless you ride the bus, of course”. When I do ride the bus, or shop at Wal-Mart, the visible population of South Asian, South East Asian, Black Canadians and African and Caribbean Canadians and First Nations people becomes more evident. The influx of Syrian Refugees, many sponsored by the Churches, Mosques and Synagogue (sometimes together) is also changing the landscape.
How is it, then, that where we shop, where we go to school, where we go to church and which forms of transport we take divide us so much in Victoria? This is an important question to explore if we’re to examine the soul of this city.
* * *
When one looks at Victoria, one has to look at the fact that the fragmentation I’ve referred to above is not just ecclesial or educational, but is also civic. Because it’s built on the tip of an island, Victoria can be a confusing place for those more used to the North American grid mentality of streets. To add to the confusion is the reality that the streets seem to change names about every few blocks in Victoria and Greater Victoria. Add to that the fact that when an outsider thinks about “Victoria”, one is likely thinking of several different political municipalities; Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay and Esquimalt.
As I’ve already noted, Victoria itself has a relatively small population of about 80,000 people – while Greater Victoria has a population of nearly 345,000 in the four geographically close municipalities. Looking even wider the area comprises 13 municipalities which take in the far southern part of Vancouver Island; albeit still with only 370,000 residents in total.
The municipalities of Greater Victoria have resisted amalgamation; this could be viewed negatively as a product of insularity and parochialism or of that individualist libertarian spirit. However, when looking toward a vision of shalom, bucking the conservative trend toward becoming a larger entity has allowed for greater diversity, including a distinct ‘small town’ feel to each of the areas. Neighbourhoods within these smaller municipalities have retained some of their life-giving characteristics. Indeed, a more ‘micro-urban’ mentality should not be written off, as within the small area of Victoria municipality are over a dozen distinct neighbourhoods.
* * *
The point of this chapter isn’t merely to describe the city — its struggles and its hopes – but to paint some kind of picture of how it acts as a sign of the inbreaking Kingdom of God. I’ve already alluded to this fragile hope in the situation at Tent City, where homeless have taken it upon themselves to organize and advocate in a way that larger society wouldn’t. I’ve alluded to it in the diverse tapestry of cultures. And I’ve identified some of the barriers resulting from fragmentation, especially those based on the intersections of ethnicity, culture, economics and religion.
If that’s the big picture, I’d now like to narrow the lens and focus on my own neighbourhood of Fernwood, where the Church plant and neo-monastic community that I’m part of is located. What are the possibilities for a Biblical vision of shalom?
The diversity of housing in Fernwood includes an array of single-family homes, rental units within houses, apartment blocks, co-operatives, co-housing, social housing, and neighbourhood-created housing. The city by-law allowing homeless residents to camp in parks between 8pm until 7am further diversifies Fernwood, given the relatively close walking proximity to the various social services downtown.
Fernwood has been home to many initiatives and projects to make it a better place, many of them emerging from the grassroots. There’s a permaculture garden (the Spring Ridge Commons), a Compost Education Centre, a community well dug from the old spring, numerous neighbourhood and street festivals and even two neighbourhood groups with varying emphases (this might be a new tribalism, or part of those historical frag-mentations). More informally, Fernwood is known as a place where there is a culture of leaving old ‘stuff’ on the curb. Moving day is a great day in Fernwood to scavenge just about anything; an inborn commitment to a culture of grassroots recycling and reusing.
Decades ago, the old village centre in Fernwood, once the turn-around loop for the streetcars from downtown, was fairly run-down and even considered dangerous. The community banded together to reclaim the decrepit buildings and, with the support of famed Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki, put in a café, affordable housing, a community centre and several garden initiatives.
The abandoned church was converted into a theatre. Another industrial space became home to the Paul Phillip’s theatre, where the church plant I am part of currently meets. (Ironic, given that the space was the supply and office depot for the contractors who built the Anglican Cathedral).
Graffiti, usually in the form of gang tagging, was an issue in the neighbourhood. Rather than fight the gangs, the residents decided to have a pole painting day every year; noting that there was an unspoken ‘code’ amongst the taggers; they considered what they did art – and would not tag over other art. When the city made boulevard gardens legal as a pilot project, many in Fernwood have expanded their capacity to grow food, as well as to beautify – with ornamental plants expanding to their boulevards.
With all that I’ve mentioned, there certainly is some gentrification happening, as Fernwood has become a more and more ‘desirable’ neighbourhood to live in. However, the diversity of the housing in Fernwood, bolstered by a community spirit, has kept much of the socio-economic diversity intact.
Interestingly, the church broadly (institutionally) has had little role in the positive transformations. The former Emmanuel Baptist left for the suburbs and it’s vacated building is now the Belfry Theatre, after a stint as a Cool Aid housing shelter. The former Belmont United Church now houses a ballet studio and the Shambhala Meditation Centre. St. Alban’s Anglican was sold in 2011, in spite of the protests of neighbourhood groups, and replaced with higher-end housing. The Lutheran Church is now a music store. The former Traditional Anglican Church (an Orange hall and a Unitarian Church before that) has become private housing which was recently made-over and sold for 1.2 million dollars.
But it wasn’t always this way. There is a plaque in the park by the Fernwood Community Centre noting the work of the Rev. William Stevenson, whom the park is named after. The plaque notes Stevenson’s presence in the neighbourhood at the turn of the (nineteenth) century as pastor of Emmanuel Baptist, noting his work with neighbourhood youth. Another plaque speaks of a Presbyterian schoolteacher who would march her poorer students downtown to buy them shoes.
When we in the missional Church / local Church / parish Church movements speak about ‘coming alongside what God is doing in the neighbourhood’ – it seems to me that we have a whole lot of catching up to do. There is something humbling, though distressing about that.
And the changes aren’t without their struggles. While Fernwood is still considered amongst ‘oldtimers’ as slightly ‘dangerous’ there is a yoga studio, an upscale café, a wine bar and an upscale children’s clothing store in Fernwood Square. Some homeless folks have been moved from sleeping in certain parks and green spaces. The abandoned buildings and tagged poles have been transformed into a progressive hub of street parties and community initiatives. And this is good. However, a warning: The coming of God’s kingdom and creation of a place where everyone can live beneath their vine and fig tree is great – but it must not be confused with blatant gentrification and, in Fernwood, where the line between those two rests is uncertain.
In spite of the diversity of housing, there are troubling signs. The 2-bedroom bungalow across the street, which was listed for $800,000 Canadian dollars sold for $920,000 – with over 20 offers – most without any conditions, according to a realtor friend of mine. “Folks selling their houses in Vancouver for 1.5 million and getting a real bargain here in a quieter town” one person noted to me. Again, the cultural and economic waves from across the water are affecting us, emphasising our interrelationship with those even off of Vancouver Island. Housing has become such a hot commodity; many people bring their inspectors along to viewings to avoid having any conditions.
* * *
Tent City is about a 15-minute walk from Fernwood. As I conclude this chapter, Tent City is being dismantled by order of the Province. Graciously, there has been no visible confrontation that I’ve heard of. Many have left of their own accord. A friend of mine, who is a social worker and has spent a lot of time down there, sent me a note saying he walked through and his heart broke. Another friend, a parishioner at the Anglican Cathedral, helped to organize an all-day prayer vigil at the Cathedral for Tent City.
Perhaps these responses demonstrate that, for all the platitudes and brokenness in our relationships and situations, sometimes the only way we can begin to perceive the Shalom of God is to lament and get on our knees.
* * *
A few weeks back, I walked past the soon-to-be dismantled Tent City. There were two large, spray-painted banners at the North-West Corner, facing the Cathedral. Both in bold letters, the two signs offered differing sentiments.
One read: “SOCIAL HOUSING NOW. INDEPENDENT CAMPS / BUILDINGS”
The other, obviously paraphrasing St. Paul, said this:
LOVE IS PATIENT, KIND, ENDURING
LOVE ISN’T SELFISH, JEALOUS
LOVE DOESN’T: PROVOKE, BEGRUDGE
LOVE IS ALL WE NEED. IT IS IMPERFECT.
TRUST LOVE. EVEN ALONE, IT HEALS.
LOVE WILL ALWAYS PREVAIL.
As I dream about this city and its potential to embody God’s reign, I hope that what I’ve presented here isn’t too negative. I love this place, but I recognize that if there’s any truth that resurrection (and thus Kingdom) emerges from the brokenness of crucifixion, then all the stories — both the hopes and the shadows — represent God’s redeeming work. It’s a messy beauty that I’ve witnessed here.
Victoria, though paradise in so many ways, is a very broken, imperfect paradise. With the contrasts, shifts, contradictions and fragments I’ve chronicled here, how can God’s people live more deeply and prayerfully into that Biblical vision of shalom? What does it mean to be Church in this context? How might Christians partner with others of good will (even amidst the fragments) to hold the beautiful, creative tension of what God is already doing through the Holy Spirit?
How could that movement of the Spirit, the movement to the great reconciliation of God’s reign of justice, shalom and joy reverberate outward to all of greater Victoria and to all of God’s beloved, blessed and broken creation?
References
Carr, Emily. The Book of Small. Douglas and McIntire: Vancouver, 2004.
Crosby, Thomas. Among the An-ko-me-nums or Flathead tribes of Indians of the Pacific Coast. W. Briggs: Toronto, 1907 – also available at: https://archive.org/details/amongankomenumso00cros
Smith, James K.A. How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2014.
Todd, Douglas, ed. Cascadia The Elusive Utopia. Exploring the Spirit of the Pacific Northwest. Ronsdale Press: Vancouver, 2008
[1] see http://www.gvha.ca/ogden-point-terminal/cruise
[2] http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/national-crime-rankings-2010/
[3] http://victoriahomelessness.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2014-15_RHS_FINAL.pdf
[4] https://www.thestar.com/life/travel/2016/04/03/cool-victoria-is-no-longer-just-for-the-newlywed-and-nearly-dead.html
[5]www.communitycouncil.ca/sites/default/files/2015_April_29_Living_Wage_Calculation_Release.pdf