There is not a strong church presence here. At least four corner churches have been turned into lofts. Our small parish is the sole voice working with young children. We are a neighborhood caught in the middle of poverty and gentrification. A middle class couple will pay $250,000 for a home and displace up to ten people who at one time could afford the rent.

There are gorgeous Victorian homes on the east side of the neighborhood, but the west side is riddled with domestic violence, teen pregnancies and substance abuse. Within three blocks of our local elementary school there are 19 registered sex offenders.

This isn't Harlem or Watts, I don't fear random acts of violence. Territorial gangs are present and even active, but mostly just men who are angry, bored and empty. They talk, make threats and cause some damage but most of it is internal. They destroy themselves. There is graffiti on our buildings and hostility in our schools but yet I know that this isn't the problem. Just a symptom.

Our families are poor but poverty in itself can be defined as simply not having as much as everybody else as opposed to not having enough. Kids have cell phones, pagers and their moms rent big screen TVs. Yet to look in their refrigerators you might only find a half loaf of bread and a six-pack of beer. Meals are bought at the corner store and the local fast food joint. Convenient, but at least double the price…bodies are attacked with the lethargy of Play Station, Nintendo and improper nutrition. Gifted minds never get a chance to shine.

There might be numerous ways out of a life like this but no one seems all that interested. This apathy or perhaps more truthfully, lack of vision, is a deep-rooted problem. Jesus asked the sick, Do you want to be well? Because He knew how satisfied we are with less than we were made for. We're gnawing on a piece of cow tongue while He stands there with fillet mignon.

And yes, we have problems here. But so do the suburbs, the downtown 1.5 million dollar lofts and the pay by the week motels. This is not an inner-city crisis; it's a human problem. And Jesus is closer than we think. Do you want to be well? Do I?