Thursday night, I sat in a large room at Rolling Hills Baptist Church for a listening session on rezoning and street expansion in east Fayetteville. Somebody from the church had put on little pots of coffee toward the back of the room. They were left largely untouched, but it was a nice gesture. The room was packed to overflowing, and I think everyone was too polite to be that person: The person who took coffee from the pot when there clearly wasn't enough coffee for everyone.
At the front of the room were city council persons, city staff and the mayor. The room was rather charged. Not everyone had all the information. Not everyone had heard the opinions and thoughts of the people in the room. The concerns included everything as simple as whether an intersection might include a roundabout, to as crucial as the safety of school children and the preservation of wildlife habitat. Here were a couple of hundred residents of one small part of Fayetteville investing their time and bringing petitions to city leaders. They all were attempting to influence how we plan roads, what developments go in as infill and raise concerns about the way the city makes decisions and how it weighs voices -- from developers, to property owners, to neighborhood residents.
Sitting in the middle of it, I was left thinking, "Humans are incredible." We all live out here in this neighborhood, living our separate lives. But we also invest energy and immense creativity at the intersections. We form planning commissions. We elect city councils. Over time, we build buildings, plan roads, develop opinions, fall in love with deer, attempt to be logical about growth, try -- often poorly -- to listen to each other. Not everyone was at the meeting. Some friends were across the state submitting applications to run for public office. Other neighbors were just busy buying groceries after a long day at work. Yet a few hundred of us found time to think carefully about the best use of the land on which we live and raise our children.
Personally, I came away from the meeting dreaming of a Mount Keenan. What if the large tract of land here at the intersection of East Rolling Hills Drive and Old Missouri Road became a green space like Mount Kessler? There's the historically and architecturally significant Keenan Towerhouse right up at the top, overlooking the community. A wooded green space with trails and such would be glorious. Such a project would likely require a grant or generous benefactor. But it would certainly add value to east Fayetteville and beyond.
As Mayor Lioneld Jordan gathered final comments and opinions and echoed back to the crowd what he had heard, I added a final suggestion. Perhaps we need a zip line from the townhouse down the hill to our church bell tower.
Which is, of course, a simple joke -- and ultimately, not even that humorous. But it fits in the mix because, even in our concern, or through our righteous anger or patient listening, neighborhoods and communities can maintain streaks of whimsy. We can play together. Maybe we don't play enough together.
As the pastor of a church that sits right there, at that corner, sharing parking lot space for parents at school pickup, attempting to be a good neighbor to the many homeowners and small businesses, appreciative of the green space across the street, continually startled that there's a Marlon Blackwell right up the hill, informed that there are both million dollar homes and a Little Free Pantry emptied and filled many times per day, I kind of fell in love with this neighborhood even more. Not all of that meeting last night was easy. But it illustrated how we care, and how we listen, and how we move forward. I like the thing Mayor Jordan often says at gatherings in our city: "It's not about what we market in this city, it's about what we believe."
That night made me believe in east Fayetteville.
NAN Religion on 02/24/2018