A creative expression of Binghampton United Methodist Church
An original poem by Kory N. Turner, Shalom Intern
Sometimes broken, sometimes weary But we come
Binghampton United Methodist Church
Sharing the value of the human experience We come
We come bringing our gifts with prayers we lift Our hearts to one another
Laying aside our titles, moving beyond our age, gender, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status, We come.
We are brothers and sisters in Christ Striving together to do God’s will
We come
Breaking through the darkness Acknowledging the light that’s deep within each of us
Binghampton United Methodist Church
We come With hearts full of love, forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing
We come and we gather at the table For a love feast that binds us Together as one
We come So that ALL Might be able to come
Binghampton United Methodist Church is one of the partners housed at The Commons of Merton. They worship every Saturday at 4:30pm at 258 N. Merton followed by a community dinner.
Come!
Writer: Kory N. Turner Kory is a seminary students at Drew Theological Seminary. He is serving as a Shalom Intern at Center for Transforming Communities this summer.
‘There’s much more of a feeling of knowing your neighbors,’ says musician
There is something to be said for a community where neighbors know each other and wave from their front porches to passersby as twilight invites post-supper strolls.
It makes for a comfortable place to call home, and it is part of the reason why Anthony Gilbert was drawn to the Memphis neighborhood of Binghampton, where he’s lived for about a year now.
“In Binghampton, as opposed to other parts of the city, there’s much more of a feeling of knowing your neighbors,” Anthony says, pointing to the diversity of the neighborhood as part of its charm.
In the neighborhood where he grew up, “people have forgotten that cultural knowledge of what it means to be part of a community,” he adds. “It has disappeared over the last generation or two.”
Anthony is a classically-trained musician specializing in violin and viola who finds in Memphis the freedom to pursue his art within a well-established underground music scene where people aren’t looking for or expecting fame, just a place to explore their passion.
After moving to Binghampton, he entered The Commons on Merton with no knowledge of The Center for Transforming Communities (CTC) and its quest to foster connections among partners and their work building a stronger community.
He needed a space to work other than his house, which holds far too many distractions to tempt him away from focusing entirely on his music, and The Commons had space. He also supplements his income teaching eager music students, so it helps to be connected to the network The Commons offers.
Today, almost a year after joining The Commons, the sound of Anthony’s viola or violin is often heard echoing off the walls of the old church building — a sound he hopes is welcomed by his neighbors.
He teaches a steady stream of students, which pay on a sliding scale depending on what they can afford, and he’s part of the larger Commons, if only as one person amidst many adding to the mosaic of change in the neighborhood.
There’s a lot of work to do in a city where more than a quarter of the population live at the poverty line, but at The Commons and through the work of its partners, change is happening one step at a time.
“I’m not saying that Binghampton is a paradise,” Anthony says. “People are still suspicious of each other on some level, and I think that’s just an ingrained habit, but I think certainly what’s happening in Binghampton is the antidote; it’s the start of something.”
Anthony’s hope is that his contribution and the gift of his music is a welcomed part of the transformation taking place in Memphis.
Focus for the Good capturing community transformation
through a lens
Courtesy of Focus for the Good
Their faces are honest and raw, at times looking withered and worn beneath the many lines of worry and sadness, but glints of hope sparkle in the corners of eyes that have witnessed the hardships of life on the streets.
They are the Forgotten Faces of Memphis, captured through the lenses of Bill Piacesi’s cameras, and in their stark realism the truths of poverty are captured with an authenticity that calls to memory photos of the 1930s American heartland.
Bill operates Focus for the Good out of a studio in The Commons on Merton, putting his one-man nonprofit organization in the heart of the quest to make the community better for a host of marginalized segments of the Memphis population.
He trades his services in exchange for the space and in doing so captures the work of his neighbors in ways only a professional photographer could. In his photos, we see the Refugee Empowerment Program at work alongside the Door of Hope, which offers paths for homeless people to discover the potential of a better future.
Through art, the missions of all partners within The Commons overlap, and the possibilities of a regenerative community shine.
“A lot of us kind of draw from the advantages of knowing each other within the building and it’s a unique experience,” Bill says, as he considers how the Center for Transforming Communities, which operates The Commons, has brought so many people together under one roof.
“It’s a unique experience as opposed to your typical business office where you can have five or six businesses in the same area that are totally disconnected and have nothing to do with each other.”
As the sole-proprietor of his operation, the benefits of being part of The Commons and intimately knowing the partner organizations are many, Bill says, because the struggles of marketing his work and ideas are lessened through the network he’s built there.
His ultimate goal is to catalyze social change through his art by telling the untold stories from the streets of Memphis. Like the photos from the time of the Great Depression or the height of the civil rights movement that first drew him to photography when he was a teenager, Bill’s pictures are a powerful means of bringing truth to light.
“Not only were those images incredibly artistic but they were also powerful social messages that took what was going on in one part of the country and helped spread that notion to a wider community, and ended up leading to social change,” he says.
His hope for similar change is what he pours into the Forgotten Faces of Memphis and the work of Focus for the Good.
