Leonard Hjalmarson, DMin
It’s survival in the city
When you live from day to day
City streets don’t have much pity
When you’re down, that’s where you’ll stay. (The Eagles, 2003)
The classic Eagles song tells one side of the story. Urban life is the reality for most Westerners now. In Canada 82% of our citizens live in cities. William Cronon notes that for many of us cities have “represented all that [is] most unnatural about human life… a cancer on an otherwise beautiful landscape” (Cronon1992, 17). This dualistic view has the negative effect of limiting creative and redemptive engagement in our urban places. A more nuanced engagement is needed. Soul of the City is a move in this direction.
Roughly two years ago I was musing on these issues with a friend, and we were wondering why there was so little sustained dialogue around urban realities in faith circles in Canada. It turned out there were many people reflecting on urban issues, but they were largely siloed and not networked. I realized that my network of connections, established through the years by my active blogging life, could be leveraged to add a few more voices to the conversation.
So I began beating the bushes. The challenge was to locate thoughtful writers in major Canadian cities who had the heart and the will to contribute a chapter. We gathered twelve theological practitioners to reflect on the spiritual topography of their city. This is spiritual geography and topographical exegesis, phenomenology and urban ethnography. It is exegesis relative to spirituality, hope, change and transition, globalization, justice and civic design. How do these components together contribute to a social and spiritual imaginary? What impact on spiritual life does gentrification, immigration, and religious pluralism generate for urban Canadians? How have our relationships to our original peoples impacted the hope of shalom in urban life? How do these attitudes, ideologies, histories, and present forces impact the spiritual climate of a place?
The cities in focus are: Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. These cities were selected for their representative (wide) dispersion as well as by the location of appropriate contributors. Some cities were eliminated because we lacked capable connections. We did what was possible.
Show me your city and I will show you what it is you long for. (Ward 2003, 467)
Urban Loft Publishers 