Noko as NIMBY? in Everyday Ramblings

The daffodils are trying but the heavy cloud cover this time this year is holding any blossoming back. This is from this morning and fits my mood. Restless and unfocused. I did go for a walk at least considering that I have been feeling more inclined to hang out at home.

There is this historic church building across the street built in the late 1800’s. It was originally a Christian church but for most of its life it was a Synagogue with an emphasis on the Turkish Jewish diaspora. When I moved here it was home to a small charismatic Christian sect. They were quite conservative, family oriented, and poor serving a congregation that did not live near here. They also were not friendly.

That congregation did not make it fully through the pandemic and about 18 months ago a tall Nordic looking woman showed up and started at first to do small repairs and then discreet remodeling jobs. She is outgoing and friendly. I can see what is going on over there through my kitchen window and I spend a fair amount of time in my kitchen. She has hired all sorts of workmen to say hang a new door or bolster a fence.

I asked one of the fellows that lives in the historic apartments across from the church on the other corner if he knew what she was up to. He said she had bought the building and was restoring it so at large congregations and visiting ministries could use it.

A couple of nights ago I watched a young man, just before dark, put his pack on the fence, take off his coat, (it had a startlingly gold lining) and boost himself up and over said fence into the backyard area. He looked like he knew what he was doing and did not look indigent. I thought he might be going over to use drugs or perhaps to sleep. There is grass. She has cleaned it up nicely.

I thought someone should know about this. Private property, neighborhood safety, you know, those sorts of things. So yesterday afternoon I saw her truck and the back door of the building was open and they were working on something, so I went over and yelled hello through the open door.

She was incredibly friendly and full of energy but not in the least concerned about this. More curious than anything. She took me through the building out back and there was evidence of someone being on the grass for a period of time. She was more curious about how he got out more than anything. There had been no attempt to break into the building.

We exchanged phone numbers. She tried to introduce me to the guy that lives on the other side that looks out for her and the building as she doesn’t live here, she lives in Oregon City. (This is interesting because the lovely house next door was built for the church caretaker when the church was built.) He was not home. At least now I know I can go over there in the future if I see something untoward.

She texted me a few minutes after I got home to say she thinks he was most likely using the outdoor outlet to charge his phone. That makes sense as I have seen people do that over here. They ended up putting locks on the ones on my building.

About five months ago there was a fire truck paramedic unit out front to once again respond to a difficult older resource needy woman in one of the front apartments that has now been moved on. The Nordic woman was extremely friendly with the firemen, like she was seeing old friends.

And it turns out she was. She was a paramedic for the fire department. And then she went back to school and became an RN. And now works for our main hospital that serves poor people on the other side of the river in the burn unit. Wow. She is 55 and at some point, had a profound religious experience and felt called to make a church available for those in need.

She showed me photos on her phone of all her fruit trees that she has on her rural property and asked if I had a preference for the kind of tree she was going to put in the corner of the back yard here to replace a scruffy invasive Tree of Heaven she took out last year. A plum, perhaps?

She has very little knowledge of the history of the neighborhood. That alarmed me, somewhat. But what I am grappling with now is that she wants to open the building for services from 5 to 7 PM each evening. I realize that those in poverty and suffering with addictions need spiritual sustenance as much as anyone and she did say she thought a group of firemen (they are almost all men) were planning to have prayer meetings here and I am cool with that…

She was a little taken aback when I told her I taught yoga. I also told her that about a third of my students were retired nurses. She clearly has no idea about what yoga is or does. She is literally a woman on a mission.

This will be interesting, I can at least, say that with confidence.