Ozzie and Harriet in the 'Hood: Adventures in Racial Reconciliation (Part One)

Lately I've been thinking that I'd like to get a little more serious in my blog--perhaps in preparation for my memoirs. Because we all know there aren't enough life stories out there...or enough books lining your shelves (ok, maybe not YOUR shelves...ours are already jam-packed, and you are welcome to come a take a few away! Just don't tell my husband.)

Living near Washington D.C. for the past 10 years has been a fun experience (even though we have yet EVEN ONCE to meet any really famous people! They never come to our side of town. Except for the one time I met a local official...who is now in prison for fraud...oh, well...). Prince George's County is one of the most affluent majority African-American majority counties in the country. It's been a great opportunity for my pasty-white family to be in the minority in our everyday lives.

Although to the surprise of many of our black friends, this is NOT a new scene for us. For the majority of our 32 years of marriage, my husband and I have been kinda floundering around in urban neighborhoods, partly out of financial pressures, and partly out of Christian ministry interests. I'm never sure how pure our motives have always been...sometimes I think we just wanted cheap rent and nobody bothering us about how long our front yard grass has grown. Other times I'm overwhelmed with how much God has taught us through our cross-cultural contacts. Getting black and white Christians to relate on a deeper and more Biblical level has become really crucial to us.

Easier said than done, especially when you are as as white as we are. We are really white. I mean never-tan-only burn-white. Blonde and blue-eyed-white. Wearing shorts in December-white. Grew up on Barry Manilow-white.

I've been cogitating over using these next few posts to share a few of these experiences. Perhaps they will be enlightening; or, more likely, you will just go "huh..." and wonder where it is all leading. I will leave that up to you. Sometimes they are humorous, sometimes sad, sometimes just sheer lunacy. It's all good.

My husband and I were pretty young and guileless when we got married. I hailed from a small mid-western town in Wisconsin, and he was from a middle-class suburb of Detroit. We knew next to nothing about urban living and racial strife--growing up in the '60s and '70s with "I'd Like to Teach the World To Sing" Coke commercials did not prepare us for the realities of big-city turmoil and civil rights protests. Caucasian life was the standard; the biggest cross-cultural experiences usually entailed going to Taco Bell and watching "Good Times." ("dy-no-mite!!")

I actually did have an African-American friend once in grade school. Our town had a small branch of the University of Wisconsin (it was nicknamed "Moo U" for its agricultural programs), and I think this family probably had moved there as a result...I wish I knew more, because they disappeared after that one year (I'm sure there's a back story!).

All I remember is that this new girl showed up during my fourth or fifth grade year--and we instantly bonded because...we were both persecuted minorities. Yes, that's right--we were both overly tall for our ages.

 I don't remember much else about her, or whether her race was a factor in anything at all. But she became, for me, the symbol of what my future held.

My husband started his first year of post-college life going to a seminary in North Minneapolis. Now, for those of you who believe that the whole state of Minnesota is populated by cows and Norwegians, I have some surprising news for you.

 Pssst....there are people of COLOR living there! Quite a few, in fact! The "Northside" has a reputation as being a rough place--crime, bad schools, poor housing stock. Unfortunately, poverty is a big issue. The church that housed the seminary had been on the verge of deciding to move out to the suburbs for many years (they finally accomplished this goal after we were done with school). They had never quite figured out how to relate to the citizens that had moved in next door over the lifetime of the church.

Going to school and working part-time necessitated cheap living, so my husband-to-be shared an old home with several other students near the church. His introduction to city life included finding drunks passed out on his front lawn on Sunday mornings.

Newlywed in her new crib

 When we got married that next year, we found a small apartment in an old home nearby. I began helping my new mate pick up local children on a school bus every Sunday morning for Sunday School. Gosh, they were cute. And a little wild. We taught a bunch of them in Junior Church every week. My heart went out to these little ones, so many from broken homes and poverty. Our weekly visits to their houses opened me up to the hardships, but also a certain level of richness and "different-ness" that I had never been exposed to before. I found I had a lot to learn.

Our neighbors next door were our real introduction to "race relations" in the end. Erlene and her kids were living with Roy, her boyfriend and thorn in the flesh. We started reaching out to her, invited her to church with us, and saw a little growth in her life and our relationship. This lovely black woman put up with our bumbling white ways, and things seemed to be strolling right along...until...

Thumpity...thumpity...thumpity...BAM! BAM! One day our whole apartment rattled with footsteps racing up the stairs and the pounding of a frantic fist on our door. I opened it to find Erlene, blood streaming down her face, screaming "He cut me! He CUT ME! Call the police!" Great God almighty...my heart pounding, I dialed 911 while trying to mop up the blood with towels. She had been sliced pretty good on top of her head--those head wounds can really bleed. I rode with her in the ambulance to the emergency room to get stitches. Fuming at Roy the whole way, Erlene promised to "get that %*$(# back!" And she did, in her own way. With Roy sitting in jail for a few days, she ripped up all his clothes, broke his stuff, and moved with her kids back to Chicago.

Ah, but that was not the end. Her older son, William, could not be found when Erlene was packing up to move. So she asked us to please give him the money she left for him "for a bus to Chicago. Just tell him to meet us there at his auntie's." William showed up at our door shortly thereafter, wondering where everyone had gone?? We handed him the money with the instructions for the bus, and he was on his way.

That weekend, my mother had decided to stop in for an overnight visit. We had a very small place, but she was fine sleeping on our old couch, she said. We were all tucked in for the night...

"Knock...knock..." I struggled awake and realized someone was at the door. My husband opened it to find a very bedraggled William standing there. "Man, Roy got hold of me, and stole my money! I've been layin' in the gutter, cryin' to God that someone would help me...could you give me a place to sleep and a bus ticket home?" OK, we knew that Roy was still in jail. So this was a blatant lie. But, what can you do?

My mom was of course wide awake and wondering who this crazy person was. I asked her to come in our bedroom and just sleep in there "because William needs a couch to crash on." What's my husband going to do? He decided to just bed down on the floor in the living room. Which worked for a little while...

"Honey...honey..." there's a whisper in my ear a couple hours later. "I'm really having trouble sleeping out there...could you just move over?" I groggily pushed my mom closer to the wall, and let my better half slide in next to me. "Did you ever think you'd be sharing a bed with your wife and mother-in-law?" I think he was too tired to even laugh. (wow...I think we only had a double bed at the time...young and skinny...)

In the morning, hubby explained to William that no, we don't have more bus fare for him. There's a day-job place down the street--if he takes some work there for a day or two, he'll earn enough to get a ticket. He's welcome to stay at our house in the meantime.

Yeah...that worked well. We were both at work a few days later (we hadn't seen William, and assumed he'd made it to Chicago) when we got a call from the local police. A neighbor had called them to say he saw our apartment getting broken into. And he had ID'd one of the guys. Sure enough--Roy was out of jail, and when he saw William and a friend getting into our place, he'd been more than happy to call the cops on them.  (Sweet revenge!) Being that we were poor newlyweds, all they got was our stereo, a winter jacket, our jewelry box (with all my exclusive Avon jewelry!), my husband's wedding ring (he always left it off to work at his blue-collar part-time job) and a couple bottles of soda (pop, for you Midwesterners).

This is "pop."

William was arrested wearing the wedding ring with our wedding date handily inscribed inside. He ended up having to pay us restitution in the end while doing time. He should have just gone to Chicago. It would have been cheaper.

The police, of course, when they heard that we had allowed this young man to stay in our house overnight, thought we were nuts. It truly was a great way to case a joint...he probably had nosed around in he middle of the night in the fridge for those soda bottles! But what could we say? We were trying to do the Christian thing and care for our neighbor. Which we began to realize sometimes meant being suckered.

So began our long journey of learning how to be wise suckers for God. We still are learning every day what it means to give up our comfort in order to see the Kingdom go forward. It has meant some really hard times, not just for us, but for our kids on occasion. But I truly believe having this shared sense of meaning to our joint lives has enriched our family immeasurably, and will continue to do so.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves)