To Love York County When It Doesn’t Love You Back
Source: Aaron Anderson. Story: This is 255 West King Street, the now home of Logos Academy’s high school facility. The raw, unfinished potential seemed a fitting picture of York County’s potential in its unimproved state.
York County is a lovely place to raise a family. I wrote about that here recently.
That post generated a lot of enthusiasm for York but also some concerned private messages. One person asked, “I haven’t had the same experience in York as your family. I am looking at moving away but would like to talk about how you came to love York County. Can we get together?”
When York County Seems Unlovely
York County has not always been the easiest place to love. Our family’s move to York in 2004 from Raleigh, North Carolina was a bit of a culture shock.
The people in York County initially seemed more reserved. At times that could even feel cold.
As a transplant, it was easy to feel like an outsider in a place where so many people were born and raised. We quickly learned that people here made sure to tell you where they went to high school locally.
When we left Raleigh, it was ranked the best place to live in America. Real estate developments were popping up all over. New housing subdivisions, the latest restaurants, and shopping experiences were abundant. We quickly learned that the pace of real estate development in York County was a bit slower.
For years, when we would leave to go on vacation or travel to a larger city, I would often return with a negative attitude about York because those other cities just seemed to have it together.
Over those years, I began serving on the York City Redevelopment Authority and would watch developers explore exciting new developments in York. For a period of time, it seemed like none of those developments were coming to fruition because the developer deemed the project financially unviable.
Top this off with what felt like a constant stream of negative national news regarding racism in York County, gun violence, and the reality that York City is the 4th most underresourced City in America.
If I am honest, York County has not always been the easiest place to love.
How to Love York County When It Doesn’t Love You Back
I can honestly say that the Anderson family truly loves York County. Let me answer that question my friend posed: How have you learned to love York County When It Doesn’t Love You Back?
The answer to this question applies to any place you struggle to love, a job you can barely endure, and perhaps has application to people who are difficult to love. These points may need to be applied to a particular Chicago Bears fan who is struggling to love his currently imploding team.
The following is the self-talk I had to apply to my own mind and heart to help me move from criticism of York County to authentic love.
Stop grumbling.
I had to stop complaining about what York County was not. York is not Raleigh, Boston, Napa Valley, or Charleston, South Carolina.
Ever noticed that when you constantly complain about something you develop a perpetually bad attitude about that thing? If you want to hate your job, constantly gripe about it.
If you want to despise your spouse, internally meditate on all their flaws.
If I was going to learn to love York County, I had to put a hand over my mouth and stop grumbling.
2. Count your blessings.
You can’t expel a negative attitude without creating an internal vacuum. The negative practice should ideally be replaced with a positive one.
I started paying attention to the things that were unique about York County. I began realizing that Raleigh is also not York County. You can look at that substantial list of things our family loves about York County and quickly see that there are a ton of cool things about this County.
I had to learn to count those blessings and develop an attitude of gratitude for York County.
Brain research tells us that focusing on something good, meditating on it, and savoring it causes a positive chemical reaction in our brains that is good for us.
Good things started to happen when I began thanking God for the relationships I had in York County and the experiences I was able to have with my family. My heart started warming up by simply learning to say “thank you” for the good gifts God has scattered in York County.
3. Have some hope.
I was not going to love York County by being a cynic. I am a person of Christian faith which means belief, hope, and prayer ought to be steady practices in my life. I’m also just a normal, quasi-dysfunctional human being stumbling on my way.
A few years back I stopped focusing on the negativity in our national news. It was overwhelming because I had no control over national challenges.
I did though, live in a local place with real problems I could try to address. I developed a hyper-focused attitude about what could be done in York County.
York County is a place that is large enough to have big city problems, but small enough that you can actually make a difference.
I started believing that there was hope that York County could address some of its major challenges. Working with local Black ministers and local police, I jumped into the challenge of improving police relations with the Black community. Next week we will celebrate seven years of meeting together every month!
There are numerous groups working on improving race relations, addressing homelessness, tackling opioid abuse, and reducing gun violence.
York has its share of problems but I have hope and belief that if we work together, we can leave York a much healthier place for our children.
When I find myself short on love for people or a place, I find no better way to deepen my love than to ask God to fill me with His own love. God is never lacking in love for people or the places they dwell.
I pray often for York County, for the Mayor, City Council, County Commissioners, our members of law enforcement, churches, nonprofits, etc. I believe God is for this place and therefore I cannot abandon hope for York County.
4. Get to work.
I was recently offering counsel to a friend struggling to love someone in his life. He had developed a grumbling attitude toward this person such that it appeared he was always in a bad mood. My friend wanted to do a better job showing this person more love.
I challenged him to get to work proactively loving that person. “What if,” I said, “you began to do acts of kindness for that person, like surprising them with a favorite drink?” I told him to pay attention to how such an act would make him feel about that person.
In the years I served as a pastor, I found that my heart toward hard-to-love people would soften as I would proactively love them by listening to them, praying for them, or spending time with them.
There is so much joy for me on Christmas day watching my loved ones open the gifts that I spent time and energy researching. I find more joy in this aspect of gift-giving than receiving and trust me, I like receiving gifts:)
For my heart to really learn to love York, I had to give myself to her sacrificially. Unselfish love never loves with the goal of a promised return. It invests itself for the sake of the other.
Of course, love is meant to be a completed circuit: the lover unselfishly loves and the recipient of that love reciprocates with an unselfish love, and on and on the healthy cycle goes.
Truly unselfish love is not contingent on the speculation of reciprocity.
I had to learn to love York County for York County’s sake. That meant I had to invest my time and energy in loving a place even when it felt like it wasn’t loving me back.
I love helping people thrive in York County. My particular knack is networking and connecting. It makes my heart glad to be able to connect people to opportunities or introduce people who are doing good work to other like-minded individuals so that the good work multiplies.
We have to refuse the cynical fatalism that says York County is doomed. I refuse to believe that frightful narrative and something tells me you do as well.
Imagine what could happen if a spirit of optimism and love for York County were to sweep over our residents. That doesn’t have to be a pipe dream. We can all learn to love York County and encourage each other to keep investing even when it feels like York County doesn’t love us back.
