Article August 7, 1989 Issue

Crime and individual safety

When no place and no one seem immune from harm, how can we not feel afraid? How can we possibly experience reliable protection?

Sharon Slaton Howell

A Recent public television special showed children in a New York City neighborhood who sometimes literally have to dodge bullets on their way to the school bus. Numbers of children—not to mention men and women—are feeling uneasy these days. Crimes of violence seem more pervasive than ever, especially those stemming from the sale and use of illegal drugs.

To many people, staying means staying out of places designated as "unsafe." Or installing more locks or venturing out only with companions. However, the zones of "safety" and "harm" are not easy to define anymore. Violent crimes hit those in high-income suburbs along with those in housing developments and ghettos, on country roads and city streets, in schools and shopping malls. And violence strikes in the broad, open daylight.

Of course, the five physical senses tell us that we are necessarily subject to the conditions surrounding us or to each other and to irresponsibility, danger, viciousness. But from the master Christian, Christ Jesus, who demonstrated the supremacy of God, good, we get the opposite view. His teachings illustrate that God, perfect Love, is the one infinite, supreme power and that man is the loved offspring of his Maker, never for a moment apart from God's all-encompassing care. This God-created, spiritual man is the true selfhood of each of us, our real identity. And being spiritual, Godlike, we reflect God's power. So we need never feel helpless before fear, misfortune, threatened violence.

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