Longing for Home

Since moving to the NYC area, I have felt like a stranger in a foreign land. Living in small apartments has been only one of the daily reminders of the radical change that I/we have chosen to embark on, as I get my education. Commuting over an hour a day with such large crowds has given me such a different perspective of what it means to be an individual and to be a part of the collective.  But as I move forward in my education, I find that a revolution is taking place within my soul, in fact, within my being. And if that isn’t enough change, our family is working through the severity of spiritual abuse that encompasses the sexual abuse of our daughter and how to heal from such breaches of trust. All of this has culminated to this place where every part of my identity has been stripped and analyzed. For no place has been kept from the intrusion of change and loss.

The normal modes of operation that I have used for the vast majority of my life don’t work here, or at least not as much as in times past. Each relationship has fallen under the microscope of change, whether that was due to geographical proximity or difference in perspective, I find myself without a home. I have said many times that I am in no man’s land. I am not liberal enough for my new friends and I am not as conservative as I used to be and I live in this place of unknown territory where the emotional landscape is barren, distant, and filled with winds of change that keep disrupting whatever I have tried to build as a place of refuge ­­— or home.

During this time, I have found that David Crowder song, “Come as You Are” has been a mantra that I have held onto by faith. One stanza of the song, Oh wander come home, you’re not too far. I’ve wondered if I would ever find home again.  The longing for a place to belong and be accepted has grown, but I questioned how much nostalgia was coloring my glasses as I looked for a home. Was I constructing some prototype that graces the pages of Better Homes and Garden picture or even Architectural Digest? Better yet, did I  have this vision of some Rockwellish version of past and present friends and family all sitting around a table that I had set for all to enjoy?  All I knew is that I had a deep longing, a place where I could come in and be me in whatever form and be welcomed and loved and to welcome and love all those who have been a part of my journey.

I think many of us want this in our lives, especially after going through major change. We find that some dear ones continue with change and others wave goodbye, and other turn towards a new direction. Sometimes these separations are natural and other times they are painful. I have experienced both and there is grief along the journey to a new place, a new identity, a new vocation.

I have longed for that place to exchange new ideas and insights that I have gained from my education and from my experience of living in such a different place. Some of the insights come from the changing role as a parent, a wife, and a friend. Other epiphanies have emerged from the pain of so much loss and alteration. Nothing in my life seems the same, each relationship has changed in some way and I have felt lost through the process. As we age, we enjoy the familiarity that we build around us, but when all of that is gone, not just through a move, but through great loss to our belief system, we don’t always know how to rebuild and we don’t always know who to trust in the rebuilding stages.

For me, I have had some dear friends that have stood with me as I have embarked on this journey that started way before moving out here so that I could attend school, but so much has culminated during this time that I have felt very much overwhelmed in my process.

  I think this is why Crowder’s song has meant so much to me. The chorus goes like this:

There’s hope for the hopeless

And all Those Who’ve strayed

Come sit at the table

Come taste the grace

There’s rest for the weary

Rest that endures

Earth has no sorrow

That Heaven can’t heal

Today, I was reminded that I wasn’t alone and as I called “home” a familiar voice of love and acceptance answered and took the time to talk to me. Her gentle, easy going voice helped me share some of my new ideas. I sensed no judgment when I brought up controversial topics. As we talked about different things, I was able to pray for her, which isn’t something I do openly in this season of my life. But as I prayed, I felt like I was home— a place of familiarity, a place where I can be my truest self. It is rare to find those people that can represent “home” to you as you are trying to rebuild your own. I was able to dust off my travelling shoes and taste the grace of being accepted and loved while I am in the place of deconstruction, remodeling, and transformation. We are truly blessed when we have those special souls that allow for broad changes, bold moves, and critical questions, and yet, can still see the true person we are.

Today, I found rest for my weary soul.  

My sadness about the Michael Brown Case

Me at 16 going through my blond phase

 For the last few days I have read so many comments about the Michael Brown Case. I have unplugged for a few hours just to keep my sanity. Plus, my homework kept calling my name, and so I would go back to work on homework, but I couldn’t shake this deep sadness that I felt.

Finally, tonight in my quiet time I realized where that sadness came from.

If any of you would have met me at 13, 14, 15, 16, and even 17 years of age, you would have thought that I was just a “thug” and a product of my low-income environment. Today when people ask about my childhood, I simplify by using the television show, Sons of Anarchy as a comparison to my childhood, especially my teen years. They were very destructive years for various reasons. 

However, I am female. I am white. So in many ways, I cannot compare myself to Michael Brown. I don’t know much about his background, but I do know he did finished high school, something that I didn’t do.

But today I am alive. I have lived a life. I have had kids. I have been given this amazing chance and I am attending a university to get my bachelor’s degree. Late in my teens my life was redeemed by the Grace of God. I was removed from my environment and given a chance to change and I did. It wasn’t because I had character that is for sure. There wasn't anything special about me. Yet, Chuck’s aunt took a chance and hired me and I traveled selling books door to door, that was my avenue out of the environment that I lived.

I should have ended up in prison, for that was the path that I was walking  no running down.  I hung around some pretty unsavory characters. I am not proud of this, but it is a part of my story. I could have been shot on more than one occasion. I could have been thrown away as another statistic, but for some reason I wasn’t. Tonight I share this as one of those “bad” youths.

Tonight I also share this as a mother who almost lost her boy a few years ago due to an illness. I can’t imagine what Michael Brown’s parents feel. The grief. The loss. We know that he made a mistake, but was that mistake worthy of death? I don’t believe so. I did things worse than steal some cigars from a convenience store. But here I am.

I believe that so many have lost sight of what it is like to make a mistake as a youth. And as a parent, how do we handle crisis that come up in our children’s lives? Do we not embrace our children and help them? The Browns were never given that chance.

I understand that everything is political. I understand that some only see one side of the story whether that person lines up with the Browns or with the police. But the truth is the Browns will live the rest of their lives missing their son. They will never get to hug him, talk to him, to see him get married or get a promotion, or go to college.

I end with this. During my first semester at Columbia in my writing class, I sat in a group of about six or seven people. Four of them were men, three white and one African American. We were discussing the Stop and Frisk policy in NYC and I asked these men if they had been stopped. All of them had.  Even though the African American man was much closer to my age than the other three twenty something males. All four of them told me of stories of being stopped by the police in NYC. Two were stopped at gunpoint. I was completely shocked. How could this happen, I thought. For whatever it counts as, these were men that attend Columbia University and had been stopped forcefully by the police. There is a problem in our society with power. It may not be that big of a problem where you live. But I would ask,  what is your gender? What is the color of your skin? For both of those characteristics seem to make a difference in parts of this country.

None of these issues are going to be fixed overnight and there are no easy answers. These are complex issues with many variables, but we must remember there are parents grieving the loss of their son tonight. While my son is sitting at the table working on his homework while I work on mine.