Disarming Fear; Part I: See Like Google
We recently moved from Observatory, a centrally located neighbourhood near the City Bowl of Cape Town, to Muizenberg, a great coastal neighbourhood close to the Indian Ocean. My mom flew down from Pretoria for a week to help us move and look after our daughter. Picking her up from the airport was a breeze, as the drive from our old house to the airport involved a simple route down the N2 highway in less than 15 minutes. After the move, we had to find a new way there, so we pulled out or phones and used Google Maps app to type in the destination.
Google Maps takes in account a variation of factors to find the quickest route for you. These factors, a combination of the shortest possible distance travelled balanced with up-to-date traffic information ends up dictating which route it suggests as the best way to go.
Early Monday morning, we had to drive during traffic hours to get her to the airport on time, so Google simply suggested the fastest way to get there. The route ended up taking us through some “rough” (or what I am told to consider as “rough” ) neighborhoods.
The same thing happened again when we went to visit a friend in a nearby town, and Google took us on roads that people warn you about not driving on.
And suddenly, a thought dawned on me: It’s as if Google Maps does not care what the ‘socially appropriate’ roads are in South Africa that one should drive on!
I wonder what life would be like if we looked at people and places through different eyes. Maybe if we look others without layers of stereotypes and fear-based assumptions, it would open up whole new worlds for us. I don’t say this to be unwise, but I do think we too easily accept stereotypes as truth instead of seeing people and places for what they really are. Unfortunately, we continue to let fear win. And when fear wins, exclusion and judgement win as well.
The Kingdom of God, however, is a place of peace, inclusion, and grace. Our challenge is to fully place our trust in the Kingdom of God to help us see things differently.
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“Following Jesus will mean surrendering the power that masquerades as security in order to love the neighbour and welcome the stranger. It will mean avoiding the safe path in order to pursue the good. But in a culture of fear, we find such risks all the more difficult since our natural inclinations lead us to close in on ourselves when we face danger. How can we maintain a posture of the open hand towards a world that scares us?” (Scott Bayder-Saye)