The street in front of our house is being reconstructed, not just paved but completely remade. This street reconstruction is an inconvenience since we cannot use our driveways or garages for our cars during this time. But it is a welcomed experience.

My wife, Pat, went to the front of our house Sunday where there was no construction going on and marveled at the silence. She could hear the birds chirping and all the nature sounds in the silence. I have been fascinated by all the work, engineering, time and effort being made to construct the new street. I am sure such a reconstruction is very expensive since it takes so much work and time.

Today I was marveling at all the work and money being put in our streets and streets and highways all around us. I thought if that amount of work, engineering and money was put in some of the neighborhoods in North Central Milwaukee we could transform areas of decay and destruction into livable environments.

I realize that such an investment of work, time and money that is being put in my mostly white middle class neighborhood will probably not be put in the low income African American neighborhoods. Such an effort to transform neighborhoods into healthy environments along with other efforts to create jobs, fund education, support people in need with basics in life, like beds, stoves and refrigerators cannot happen in the present.

However, it is worth fighting for, like the small group struggling to have the local Society of St. Vincent de Paul live up to its mission. Today a friend called that my mission. The friend pointed out as others have done that I as the messenger was the problem why the message was not heard and supported. Marginalizing the messenger to ignore the message as being a part of every campaign I have been involved, including the one to stop our local Catholic university to stop teaching war and killing.

I can become discouraged since it is my “white liberal friends” who say this. However, I just need to look outside and watch the persistent effort to reconstruct our street. I remember how in all four Gospels John the Baptist, cousin of Jesus is described as an “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” (Matthew 3: 3)

Maybe we are called to be road constructors, inconvenient as it may be, preparing the way for Jesus to work in our lives.

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