I am a lifelong Memphian who was raised in South Memphis. My home was right in front of the former South Side High School, and my grandparents lived next door to Ben and Francis Hooks and her parents on Edith Avenue.

I grew up playing outside, walking to my grandparents’ home from church and school. I’d walk from Booker T. Washington High with my classmate to the home of my high school sweetheart’s parents in what was then LeMoyne Gardens. I attended LeMoyne-Owen College, going to games and parties on campus and in the community. I always felt safe.

But that sense of security has been challenged over the years. My mom and I were robbed in our driveway my senior year. I saw two teens get shot and killed outside of my front door. My high school had a reputation for violence. The places I went grew more “secure” with guards on parking lots, buzzers on doors. Security systems became a way of life. I learned to be more cautious, less carefree.

Today I live in Whitehaven. My neighborhood was hit by car vandals a few years in a row. And yet I still feel safe. I walk my dogs, ride my bike, go to movies, evening worship. I do not allow fear to drive me. I am cautious, but I do still feel safe day and night in my hometown. I have traveled and visited places throughout the country and a few places around the world. In comparison, I feel safer here than 90 percent of those other places.

Our concerns about safety are real, not imagined. Last weekend, our Binghamton guesthouse, where we host visiting medical students, was broken into. No one was hurt, but thieves took electronics and clothing. Property crimes — particularly those that involve forced entry into our cars, homes or businesses — take a huge toll on our collective sense of safety. In too many of our neighborhoods, there’s a tacit approval of stealing and a willingness to purchase stolen goods. Until those values change, we’ll continue to be anxious for ourselves and our property.

I feel safe in Memphis. I’ve lived here most of my life except for six years in the Los Angeles area working with young people through Young Life Urban Ministries. My wife and I both grew up in Midtown. We lived in Orange Mound in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

We came back to Memphis after L.A., and moved to the community around Ridgeway High School and Balmoral Elementary where all four of my children attended great public schools and all attended college. Now we live in High Point where we can get on the Green Line and run and bike for miles.

What a great city, Memphis. And each and every neighborhood where we lived has been warm, friendly, and yes, safe. You know, half of all Americans live in 42 places and Memphis is one of them. More than 75 percent of Americans live in cities of 50,000 or more. Half the world’s population lives in urban areas.

We are now a global city, not a village. Urban life can cause fear, alienation, and sensory overload. But cities also provide culture, healing, diversity, and so much more that’s positive. So we can choose: Fear of the unknown, fear of people who are different from us, fear of certain neighborhoods that we’re convinced are dangerous. Or we can choose to be neighbors who care, love and strike out at fear. Perfect love casts out fear (I John 4:8). I wonder if we really believe that. I do.

I believe Memphis is a safe place to live and work and raise families. I grew up here and chose to live and work in Midtown and raise my own children here, all public school products. One of our children lives here and is raising his family here because of his love for Memphis. Our two other children come as often as they can because they too love Memphis. In the words of one of our great presidents, “The only thing we (as a city) have to fear is fear itself.”

Having been robbed at gunpoint on the streets of Memphis, I certainly understand fear and the anxiety about walking the streets. However, I am more angry about the robbery than fearful. Said plainly, I will live as normally as possible. That is victorious living.

To characterize a whole city as safe or unsafe is foolhardy. In every city, there are pockets of frequent criminal activity. People who know nothing about a community are prone to stereotype entire communities. For example, I have lived in the same Whitehaven community for 31 years. My family and most of my neighbors have never experienced any problems with crime over those years. Yet I constantly run across outsiders who speak of the criminal presence in Whitehaven. In essence, such perceptions are shaped more by reports that are formal and informal, factual and imagined than they are by sound statistical data.

At 87, I seldom walk alone at night, not because I am afraid but because at my age my balance is all gone. Living in the area near Highland and Summer, I feel safe. Most of my neighbors — black and white — seem to be churchgoing people. I have always advocated that people who attend/participate in some form of church activity create an atmosphere of safe living. If we can get our people young and old to attend church and hear their pastor preach about God’s way of life, we would again make our beloved Bluff City what it was in 1955 when I came to Memphis: one of America’s cleanest and safest cities.

It would be foolish to ignore that Memphis is a city with a high rate of violent crime. It behooves all wise citizens to be sensitive to our surroundings and situations. I try to watch where I am and what’s going on. Naiveté serves no purpose. But we must not become paralyzed by statistics or even realities. Capitulating to fear does not help us find proactive solutions. As both communal citizens and people of faith, we must find ways to work together to reduce crime in our city. As the saying goes, “It takes a village.” There needs to be more community dialogue, discernment and action.

Part of the solution is sort of “old school” in that we have the capacity to love our neighbors as ourselves and to look out for one another. I really like the Blue Suede Brigade work and would love to see it expanded. Retiring baby boomers, step up! Overall, people say “perception is reality,” but I believe it is a false perception to see caution as any more needed here than anywhere else. I have spent a great deal of my time inside the Parkways. Personally, I think we are safer in Memphis now than we were back in the 1970s and 1980s.

After a long litany of random killings, the most recent being in Newtown and at the Boston Marathon, I suggest that there are few parents of children in our nation who are not afraid … for their loved ones and for others for whom they are responsible. It’s not only in our own neighborhoods; it could be anywhere. As people of faith, we have those who have taken the gospel’s nonviolence to heart — such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day and Gandhi — and shown us a bold way to face that violence and bring peace. It takes grace which is beyond us on our own.