You Can Never Go "Home"

Well . . .

I just got home after a short vacation to Texas to visit my family. It was nice to see them all. We had family pictures made. That was nice too. I got to eat at some of my favorite restaurants. That was nicest of all. On the way back we stayed in New Orleans and had beignets at Cafe du Monde and ate Creole food on Jackson Square. Our waitress was not a "tress" at all, so we got the entire French Quarter experience. On our way out this morning we saw the remains of the 9th Ward and other areas hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina. It is amazing that almost two years later, much of the city is still uninhabitable. New Orleans is definitely up and running, and you would never know that anything happened in the Quarter, but how long can this really go on? There are so many people who can never really go home. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks in Dallas and Houston who wish they could.

During our time in Texas, we had an interesting experience. One day, we took a trip down to Waxahachie, where we lived for almost ten years, bought our first home, and introduced our three daughters to the world. I had not been back since I moved to Florida in February 2006. I went back to Texas over Christmas holidays, but I was not ready to go back "home." Lots of reasons for that. Well, we drove by our old home and it looked awful. I almost hope the woman who bought our house could read this, but the place was a wreck in just over a year. We had prided ourselves in keeping the lawn looking very good. My wife and I bought the house new, so there was no lawn and no landscaping. We did everything to make the home look respectable. But now, the lawn was horribly overgrown, the trees were dying, and the shrubs had not been pruned since the last time my wife pruned them in late 2005. It was embarrassing. We wanted to drive by, see the house, and remember bringing our girls home from the hospital and all the parties I used to have with my students. But now, if we never knew it before, that is not our house anymore.

It was a little sad, but put a close to that chapter of my life. I just realized again how thankful I should be to be where I am. Before we left for our visit, my mother told me I should go see the old life and have a good time and realize that I had done the right thing by moving to Florida. She was right.

I am thankful that I have choices and God has blessed me with opportunities, opportunities that many of the poor folks from New Orleans will never experience. I think we have a problem in this country when the church believes that every poor person is poor because they want to be that way. They have made the choice to live that way. Although I believe many people make bad decisions that lead them to homelessness, many poor people really have no way out of their poverty. I am beginning to wonder whether or not much of our "Christian" rhetoric about the poor is really latent racism and a whole lot of fear. I admit that I am afraid, but fear is not going to limit me. I took my children to New Orleans because I want them to grow up aware of their world, and not afraid of it.