Homelessness

I went for a walk tonight. I don't know why. I just had to get out of my house, I guess.

I wasn't even a block from my house when I start to think about my life. Now, don't run away. I'm trying not to be some cliche, pseudo-philosopher sage who talks like he knows everything when he doesn't have a clue about anything. Just hear me out, if there's anybody there.

I grew up in a city that doesn't feel like home anymore. I lived here for 25 years before moving to LA to go to seminary, and man, has this place changed.

Maybe I didn't see it before because I lived here, or maybe I did and it didn't register as odd, but there are a lot of luxury cars, remodeled / overpriced homes, and snobby people. The seminary was in a mid to lower class neighborhood, and I was comfortable there, but I think it's more than socio-economic.

My first job almost 15 years ago was a pizza delivery driver for Al's Pizza so I got to know this community very well, but I recognize next to nothing now. The main street in this side of town, 17th street, has been totally remodeled. Almost all the stores that were here when I left are gone, and all the new ones don't seem to fit here, or they fit and I don't.

I'm trying to have lunch one a week with my best friend from high school, Dave, and he's taking me around to all the new restaurants to reacquaint me with where I grew up. It's so weird (I promise this has a point; I'm getting to it soon).

As I kept walking tonight I decided to walk down Cabrillo St., the street I grew up on from about 2 or 3 until I was 8 when my parents got divorced. Not a safe thing for me to do as the last time I walked down that street I found myself sitting in the parking lot I learned how to ride my bike in crying my eyes out. Why? Because I wanted things to be like they were when I lived there, just like I want Costa Mesa to be like it was before I left in 2002, and why it feels now like this place has changed.

However, I realized as I was on the return leg of my walk, and especially when I sat down to right just now, that the reason it feels like I don't fit in here is because I've never fit in here. I was able to become acclimated to it by being surrounded by it constantly, but coming back here now taught me that this is not home, at least not this rich side of town.

I grew up in Costa Mesa, but went to school in Newport Beach. My friends were kids of CEO's of major corporations, major restaurant chain owners, government lobbyists, car dealership owners, radio & TV talk show hosts, former major league baseball players, not to mention the myriad of cops, doctors, plastic surgeons, lawyers, shrinks, real estaters, etc. BMW's, Mercedes, SUV's with $1000 sound systems were 16th birthday presents. They went to Ivy League and private universities when I went to junior college. My dad's a plummer, and my mom worked in hospital auditing before being diagnosed with lupus when I was 14. That's certainly not my background.

This is not my world. We all played sports together but when my friends starting getting into drinking and drugs, I didn't. I don't know why. I think it's because my dad warned me hard by telling me his story. But, for whatever reason, tt didn't interest me at all. I didn't need that stuff to have fun, or to talk to people. When they started rejecting rock and rap for classic rock, I didn't follow either because I didn't like the music.

But, the biggest differences that began to creep in between my friends and me were not these superficial differences, but the fact that these superficial differences mattered to them. What you drank while at a party, and the kind of music you liked really mattered to them, but I didn't care. I liked what I liked. You like what you like. So what! I like you regardless of what you like. Can't we be friends anyway? Without saying it, my answer was "Of course," but theirs was "No."

I wonder what it was I did, if anything, to push them away from me. What I just wrote above is the only thing Dave or I have been able to think of then and now.

I didn't fit in here then, and I don't fit in here now, and then compound that with being a Christian who is a "stranger and alien" (1 Pet 2:11) in this world and me studying to be a pastor, and this homeless feeling grows ominous.

And, it doesn't go away by becoming a Christian either. The Bible also says of the Christian that we are "no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household" (Eph 2:19). Now, there's a lot going on in that verse, but one thing's certain, Christians, though they were strangers and aliens, are now supposed to find a home with other Christians.

Not me though. We're supposed to have a taste of home with other Christians, but no matter what group of Christians I'm with, I don't fit in. I went to a non-pentecostal seminary, but taught at a pentecostal university so I was getting "What are you doing there?" from both sides as both sides looked at me sideway for associating with the other. Result? Didn't fit in much.

Also, kids I discipled at church for 6 years before leaving for LA are now in their early to mid-20's, and now they're starting to shun me because I think and act more like an adult while they're still into kid stuff. I'm not fun anymore.

I wish I could say I figured all this out, or have some keen insight about why homelessness has been a constant problem in my life, but I don't. I'm trying to figure it out, and just making observations. I have no idea what any of it means, or what I'm supposed to do about it.