The Power of Perception

Several times throughout my last year living in the city (both Grand Rapids and Boston), the question of safety has come up.  "Don't you feel scared?" or "Do you feel safe here?" or "Can I leave my valuables in the car?"

To my knowledge, I have had my possessions stolen four times in my life.  Freshman year in college, the one time I left my bike unlocked, I returned from class to find it missing.  Sophomore year I similarly returned from class one day to find my scooter was gone.  Later, at a school dance, I returned to where my friends and I had set some of our belongings to find that those of us who had left our wallets in our changes of pants had had the cash removed.  Yesterday, now back at home, and ironically immediately after my dad had warned me about some increases in thefts from vehicles in the area, I awoke to find that the police were dialoging with a gesticulating neighbor in front of her vehicle.  Apparently a thief or theives had broken into every car in the circle the previous night, looking for small items of value.  I had been relieved of a GPS and 3 N64 games (ok, maybe they weren't just looking for items of value, you might be able to sell those games for 99 cents on e-bay). 

All of the times I have been stolen from, it was either at a Christian college or at my home in "warm and cheerful Centerville."

We perceive these as relatively safe places.  People don't come to my house and ask, "Is it ok to leave valuables in the car?"

Now, I don't mean to gloss over the fact that in general, there are far more crimes per capita in densely populated urban areas as compared with suburban areas.  It is important to "confront the brutal facts of reality" (to borrow a phrase from my most recent read: Jim Collins' Good to Great).  A recent article I saw in the Dayton paper showed a four-fold difference between violent crime in local urban and suburban areas.  However, the article highlighted that this was a decrease from what was a ten-fold difference not so long ago.  While this is a significant difference, it is important to remember that our safety is not statistics: you might be at risk in areas that our society labels "safe" and you may not be in danger amongst culturally designated "unsafe" locations. 

Our security should not lie in locks and locations, but in our Lord.  This is why I am not afraid to move to a city that places in the top half of "The 10 Most Dangerous Cities in America" (http://yhoo.it/jd5fJR).  I don't believe we ought to give up on locks, live in ignorance, or foolishly discount the possibility of God's provision through the ordinary (recall the story of the man in the flood waiting for "God to save him" (http://bit.ly/b2j4C8)), but sometimes our perceptions, influenced by a penchant for protection and precaution, can paralyze us from pursing God's plans.