Where I am now

That being said (see the Fire entry), I now live in a neighborhood where I am in the minority. I love being around people who are different from me. Many of my friends and the people I'm attracted to are either from other countries or have some sort of disability or are different colors from me. I am stretched and challenged and inspired by people who look, act, think, and behave differently from me. And I am perfectly comfortable where I am.

When we decided to buy a house, my son was 9 months old. I would strap him in his carseat and drive in every direction for at least a 60 mile radius surrounding Nashville looking at houses and feeling out neighborhoods. It wasn't until I found North Nashville and Bordeaux that I found peace. We nearly bought a house in West Nashville, but whenever I would go there, fear would creep in. Something about it made me nervous. When I checked out more affluent neighborhoods, I found myself thinking, "Who needs a house this big?" So I was either moving in fear or judgment.

Then, I pulled up to my house. I said to my son, "I think this might be our house!" We walked around the big yard, sat on the porch, admired the tall trees, and even checked out the tire swing. We took a walk around the neighborhood. We spoke to all the pedestrians. The lady next door came over the second time I was there (I was showing the place to my sister-in-law), and she said, "You are welcome! You are welcome! You're gonna love this neighborhood. It's nice and quiet...well, except for the 4th of July and my birthday. Then we get a little loud. But we'll be cooking out and you can just come on over!"

I found myself praying for the neighbors, the pedestrians, the people driving by, the land, the neighborhood businesses...and I thought, "This feels like God." Three months (and a lot of negotiating) later, we moved in.

I pray a lot for my neighborhood--especially when I'm taking walks with the kids or driving late at night or going to bed. I love my neighbors. My heart fills with joy when I come home and see the trees and the porch and the tire swing.

When we moved in, I was reading a book called The Children by David Halberstam. The author was a newspaper reporter in Nashville during the Civil Rights Movement. In this book, he chronicles the lives of the students who participated in the Nashville sit-ins and the Freedom Rides. It's one of the best books I've ever read. I fell in love with each of the students. I started on a quest to find out more about their experiences and the impact they made on our country.

I checked out documentaries about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King from Blockbuster while we were still living in Antioch. I shared my heart and my passions with my students at the homeschool academy where I taught. After we moved, I discovered the main library in downtown Nashville. The first time I visited their Civil Rights room, I watched videos of civil rights demonstrations and wept uncontrollably for about an hour.

I felt as though God was leading us to our house to be salt and light and to change the spiritual climate in the area. Now I also feel that if we had chosen a more homogenous neighborhood (after sensing God's leading us to this one), we essentially would have been spitting in the faces of those who fought so hard and suffered so much for us to live together in harmony.

I'm honored to live so close to one of the colleges that several students attended during the sit-ins that we can actually take walks on their campus. And I'm honored to be raising the great-grandchildren of Molly Todd, who participated in the sit-ins. This red-headed, fiery relative's husband managed Harvey's, a successful department store which also housed a small restaurant. She sat in her husband's restaurant and protested beside friends of color. Yet, she remained a faithful and loving wife. Sounds like my kind of woman.