my ghetto home

When we first arrive, no one stands at the door to greet us - at least not officially. The resident homeless man, however, offers his loud (perhaps socially unnacceptable) greeting. With his typical bluntness, he says, "I haven't seen you around here in forever. I thought maybe you'd forgotten about this place."

I sit on an old chair. All the chairs are old. Even the newest donated ones age quickly; not unlike the community itself, where a fourteen year old becomes a mom and a thirty year old a grandma; where the daily obstacles can make a fifty year old look eighty. I view the brightly colored walls. An enormous multi-colored African-style mural welcomes the guests. Bold colors adorn the walls. Yet, covering each wall is a thin layer of crusted milk and food from the Head Start Program and from the weekly Kid's Life, where over five hundred kids attend each Monday night.

There is something about that paradox: that where there is the most beauty there is often ugliness and where there is the most ugliness one is bound to find beauty. Perhaps I'm trying too hard, like the man in American Beauty, who video tapes trash bags dancing and calls it art.

I guess that's a part of what draws me here. It's not like a normal church. There are no hand-outs and three point sermons, no PowerPoint lyrics to the songs, no sense in hiding the ugly. Perhaps it's that they understand that we are all beautiful and made in God's image and yet we are all a mess in the inside. I don't know if this place can hide their mess if they even tried.

People trickle in slowly when the music begins. It doesn't feel rehearsed and nobody seems to laugh at me when I stumble over the Spanish words. There is no stop in the middle to awkwardly greet one another. Instead, people wave or even interrupt the service to walk over and say "hi."

I need this place. Everytime I return, it is like coming back after going away to college. It's all at once comforting and yet a little strange - like leaving to another city and then coming back to see that people move on without you. Still, I need this to remember that I am ugly and beautiful and that sometimes authenticity is the best thing I can offer.

More than that, I need to remember that my students are part of families and neighborhoods. After awhile, I start to beleive that they are all a sea of white uniforms and that the silence they offer during bell work is a mere front - a gift they offer out of respect, but not necessarily their first choice. I need to remember that they are surrounded by the ugly/beauty paradox and that, when they visit school, I shouldn't be shocked when they find the whole system to be phony. Perhaps they're right.