I believe life teaches us lessons that help us find our passion, even though at the moment, we might not know what we are being taught. My “This I Believe” is based on some autobiographical reminiscences over a period of about 40 years because, mysteriously to me, my life has come full circle.
I got married in July of 1973; I was 24. Both my husband and I had Ivy League master’s degrees. We would change the world with our multi-syllabic vocabularies. My husband was a minister, so we chose our first church based on the congregation’s interest in “increasing diversity” in area churches. We honeymooned from Pennsylvania down the Blue Ridge Parkway to our first manse nestled in one of the most gorgeous rural areas of central Virginia. The little town was called Altavista: “high view.” It was close to Lynchburg, Virginia.
As a result of our efforts to do what the board said they wanted, by Thanksgiving, we had the first-ever interracial church service to be held in that 200-year old community. It was a celebratory day: some 120 people—black Episcopalians and black Baptists, white Episcopalians and white Baptists worshipped together for the first time ever.
But late one night the phone rang. Someone on the Human Relations Council, someone who did the hair of some of the town’s more prominent citizens, said we had to leave that night. It was the Klan. We gave the threat some credibility as a union organizer for the Burlington Coat Factory who lived in the community had recently been killed in a so-called “hunting” accident.
By Christmas Day, we had been kicked out of the church and the denomination permanently. Remember, it was 1973. We no longer had jobs and we were sleeping in our jeep.
For the next year or so we were homeless – living in people’s summer trailers, camping in state parks, moving eventually to upstate New York where we worked in a Dairy Queen, my husband chopped wood, and I was a lifeguard. Eventually we got another parish. As a result of these seemingly senseless events, I came to understand “homeless” and was driven to make sure it never happened to me again.
In the next 25 years, my husband and I moved far and near some 19 times. We lived in New York, New Jersey, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Kansas, and Texas. I made friends and left friends. I made friends and grieved friends so often that, at some point, I decided not to make friends anymore. When I saw the ninth state, New Mexico, in my future, I left that marriage. By then I was driven to make sure I had at least a few friends and, along with my home, I would never lose my friends again.
So now, when I get up in the morning and go to work, I know what I believe. Homelessness can happen to anyone at any time for any reason. I believe that homelessness and high mobility leave scars that do heal and, as they heal, can result in a more passionate understanding of the need for stability and for caring relationships that endure for a lifetime.
