Do you ever feel scared or uncomfortable in Credo?

Credo Cafe is one of Urban Seed’s most special places. It’s where we share lunch with people from all walks of life and a place where we are all the same. Students often ask us questions about whether we feel safe in credo. Here is a response from Stephen Said.. but before that, here’s a little about Stephen (info from www.urbanseed.org)

Stephen Said, Residential & Community Engagement Co-ordinator

Stephen is a husband, a dad, and a foundation member of the Melbourne Heart Football Club. He works in the area of activism and social change as an educator, activist, speaker, writer and community development worker.  Stephen is particularly interested in radical spirituality, incarnational community and the dynamics of personal and social transformation and you can read more about this on his blog. He has helped many think about the nexus between the issues of justice, poverty, consumerism and discipleship in the context of popular global culture.

Question: Do you ever feel scared or uncomfortable in Credo?

Stephen: I often feel uncomfortable and scared. Often when I am close to someone who might be suffering some kind of mental illness, I feel both. It’s hard because I think about all those reports on the news about people with mental illnesses hurting or harming members of the public.

However, the longer I spend in Credo, I realise that not only have I never been threatened, but I have never seen someone threatened by a person with a mental illness in Credo.

If I keep thinking about it, I realise that a lot of my fears are based upon media reports that really are not very accurate at all. So these days, when I find myself feeling uncomfortable or afraid, I try to ask myself “Is the source of my fear/discomfort real, or something the media/broader pop culture taught me?”

It’s a hard discipline to practice, but when I do, it really helps me to actually be more open to the people who are around me, rather than being frightened by culturally constructed stereotypes.

Thanks for sharing Stephen!!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCJcfkD-Tkw?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0&w=500&h=304]

This was filmed in Union Lane in Melbourne.  A regular stop in our City is Our Home Walks.  We had to endure the ‘fruits’ of this in the days after.  It was not pleasant.  🙁

One of the interesting things about Melbourne, is that it has many different spaces and sections.  Each space or section, caters for something different.  As the spaces change in the city, so do the people in those spaces and the activities done in them.  

The laneways in Melbourne provide an alternate space and voice.  Thus graffiti is a popular element of Melbourne’s laneways.   Can you imagine the 3L milk challenge being done in the Block arcade?

Union Lane is one of the places in the city where we like to play laneway cricket.  For us cricket is a way of blurring the lines between the different sections and spaces that exist in the city.  When we play cricket a game is usually made up of ‘random’ people who all wish to play cricket.  Ordinarily these people would not hang out or get to know each other, but by playing cricket they begin to realise that they have many things in common.  

This piece of graffiti was done by Melbourne based street artist Meek.  (Not Banksy as many think).  It appeared all around Melbourne in 2004.  

One of the great things about graffiti is that it asks many questions, rather than just giving answers.  

What kind of change?

His life to change?

The world to change?

This in turn begs the questions:

Is this change possible, and how?

Does it require any change from us?