When a Man of War Becomes a Man of Peace: Finding the Kingdom on the Streets of Chicago

In 1995, author and poet Wendell Berry saw it fit to write a poem to his granddaughters after they had visited the Holocaust museum for the first time…*

Now you know the worst

we humans have to know

about ourselves, and I am sorry,

 

for I know you will be afraid.

To those of our bodies given

without pity to be burned, I know

 

there is no answer

but loving one another

even our enemies, and this is hard.

 

But remember:

when a man of war becomes a man of peace,

he gives a light, divine

 

though it is also human.

When a man of peace is killed

by a man of war, he gives a light.

 

You do not have to walk in darkness.

If you have the courage for love,

you may walk in light. It will be

 

the light of those who have suffered

for peace. It will be

your light.

In 2009, as many people died as a result of street violence in Chicago as there were U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Interrupters is a documentary that covers a year in the struggle of Chicago’s community non-violence initiative, CeaseFire, which includes a group of former gangbangers called Interrupters who patrol the streets seeking out situations which could easily escalate to violence and stopping it in its tracks through impromptu engagement and mediation. The film explores the past lives of the interrupters themselves–what brought them to the place where they realized the way of violence is a death to the soul. They spend their lives on a daily basis confronting this same cycle head on, piecing back together their own souls in the process. We also meet those on the streets of Chicago who know nothing of a life not steeped in violence, beautiful souls sacrificed to this way of life. It’s a documentary with some of the most vibrant, complex, and real characters you’ll find in a movie theater.

As the images unfold on the screen, we find a film that humanizes the problem of violence in a way unlike most films have. It invokes immense compassion for those living on the streets of Chicago, caught in a cycle so hard to break out of. It’s hard to condemn them, this is all they’ve ever known. Not only has violence become learned behavior for them, but they see the immediate “benefits” of it every single day. It’s hard to think about your future when you’re trying to simply survive today. The interrupters roam the streets making connections and forming relationships–meeting these people where they are, giving them room to be themselves, understanding it’s not the people who are evil but the very cycle of violence itself.

As one interrupter puts it, it’s like “looking at the devil face to face.” Violence perpetuates violence, an endless cycle that is more like a disease than anything else. Like many diseases, it seeks out breeding grounds and poverty-stricken areas are one of the most habitable. The police don’t do so much as preside over recently dead bodies and create more fear which acts as more of a catalyst to the problem. Members of CeaseFire and the community go to a town hall meeting and speak out against the notion of bringing the National Guard into their streets. They know that adding more guns to the problem will just create more fear and then more violence. The interrupters don’t just seek to stop violence as it’s happening, but to reach into the hearts and minds of the people who think it’s the only way. By their very actions, they show that love and honest relationship is far more powerful than weapons and authority.

What strikes me most about the film, though, is how as you watch these broken individuals living in this broken world we begin to realize in many instances we are seeing the Gospel also breeding on the urban streets of America. In one instance, a young man gets out of prison and goes back to the barbershop he robbed to ask them for their forgiveness. In another, one of the interrupters who had previously served time for murder now spends time with his victim’s family on the anniversary of the murder. These powerful moments invoke a power so much stronger than hatred and violence. In many ways, this is the essence of the Kingdom which Christ came to establish–a murderer in broken embrace with the mother of his victim. The film offers an incredibly sad portrait of what a world which is governed by our own fear and selfishness looks like but at the same time, offers a glimpse of what a world in which the Gospel is truly lived and how the hope of the Kingdom has the ability to leave the reality of this world left behind in ashes as we move closer and closer to the reality of Christ.

*Thanks to Richard Beck for recently posting this poem. It can be found in Berry’s book of poems, A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems.