I spent most of my morning scrubbing blood off my front door.
My husband and I moved in about two years ago, after touring nearly 50 houses. On the same day, we often found ourselves looking at two houses on opposite sides of the tracks: one in the affluent neighborhood, another in the part of town that you don’t walk around in at night. We felt the tension between wanting to live somewhere “nice” and “safe,” and wanting to live somewhere where our neighbors didn’t necessarily look, think, or live like us. We didn’t want to insulate ourselves from the realities of urban living by cloistering into a gated community. We wanted to rub shoulders with people from all walks of life. My husband and I love surrounding ourselves with people who have different ideologies and backgrounds, and we want our kids to know people who are different from them. We think there’s learning and growth when a community has to function through differences, and it would allow us to practice truly loving our neighbor, even when it’s hard. We purposely sought a place where we could move in and love people like Jesus would.
When we walked into the house on Chestnut Street, we knew we’d found it. The house was beautiful, and the street had all the marks of an urban neighborhood in a fast-growing city — small, run-down rental houses worth $50k squatted next to new houses selling for nearly $1 million. Brand new BMWs shared the street with beat-up Nissans. Folks of all types meandered up and down the road — Black, white, old, young, people with dogs, people on bikes, people pushing carts. Looking around, we knew it would be a place where we could plant our family and love our neighbors.
Over the next two years, we began to learn about the neighborhood and its various quirks and challenges. We complained with our neighbors about the construction; we learned the names of the folks walking to the convenience store at the corner. We learned about the racial tension, the failed annexation attempts, the poorly kept rental homes, and the drug-dealing neighbor up the street. Next to the drug house was an abandoned home that seemed porous with squatters recovering from a high. At times we’ve had cop cars parked in our driveway, scouting out the drug house; more than once we’ve heard gunshots at night.
Before we moved in, we prayed that many people would come through our front door and experience the hope and healing of Jesus.
Then just yesterday, a man with a bloody arm came to my door.
This wasn’t the first time a neighbor had come to our door unannounced. A few weeks earlier, a neighbor named Miss Patsy knocked on our door while we were eating dinner. She was weeping about a fight she’d had with her sister. She’d clearly been drinking. “You were the only place I thought I could go,” she told us. We prayed for her then gave her a ride to the corner store. A few days after that, she came by again, asking for a ride to her brother’s house. Again, she said, “You were the only ones I thought would help me.”
Then there’s Miss Annie, who knocks on my door anytime she’s had a fight with her neighbor. There’s Miss Becky, who knocked on my door after a zoning meeting, asking for more information about what we’d heard. There’s Willy, and the others who live in an encampment down by the creek, who have stopped at our door asking for food, or asking if they can cut our grass for a bit of money.
Yesterday, though, was different from those other times.
I was in the kitchen preparing dinner while our baby napped upstairs.
I heard thumping footsteps running up to our porch, and then loud banging on the door. The face of a tall Black man appeared in my window, frantic and shouting.
Terrified, I ran to the door and turned the deadbolt, thinking he was trying to break in.
“Help me!” he shouted, “I’m bleeding to death! Help! Call 911!” He had his shirt off, and it looked like it was wrapped around his wrist. Ok, I thought, he needs help. I made eye contact with him in the window, nodded, and ran to get my phone to dial 911. Shaking, I said, “There’s a man banging on my door who says he’s bleeding.” But before I could give my address to the operator, a car pulled up in my driveway, and the man left just as quickly as he came.
Moments later, I opened the door as several police cars showed up. There was blood splattered everywhere.
After giving our report to the officer, he told us to leave everything as it was so that a forensics team could take photos. The bloodstains remained overnight, soaking into the wooden deck.
***
Scrubbing the blood on my wooden porch the next day, I wondered about the Israelites. Did they scrub the blood off their doorposts in the days following that Passover meal?
Or, maybe they left the blood there as a solemn reminder — not of the sacrificed lamb, but of the mercy they needed and the firstborns that had been spared. For them, it was a symbol of life, not death.
Looking at the stubborn stains on my porch, I wondered if they could serve the same purpose for me.
The bloodstains on my porch are not a reminder of the violence; they are a reminder of why we moved into this neighborhood in the first place: to love. They are a reminder that there are people right around the corner who are broken, hurting, looking for love and belonging; and sometimes, they get stabbed when they look for it in the wrong places.
There are bleeding people all up and down my street, even if they aren’t leaving stains on my porch — people I never would have met if we had chosen the gated isolation of the suburbs. They are crying at my kitchen table, looking for their next meal, or ranting about their neighborly frustrations and fears. Their hearts are bleeding as badly as that man’s hand, and his bloodstains remind me that there are so many people who need healing here. Including myself.
Many people think of their houses as a haven from the world, but the bloodstains remind me of the love of Jesus. The world can only be loved by exposing oneself to it. That love is always vulnerable, always uncertain. Even so, it is always worth the risk.
