Home away from home

I arrived back in Berkeley last Saturday and felt like I was coming home to my home away from home. Passing a homeless person opening a box of pizza on the steps at the train station on Sunday morning reminded me of the seemingly insular quality of life in the Upper Delaware. I recalled a scene on Narrowsburg’s Main Street around Thanksgiving where a resident of the adult home was asking two men in conversation in front of the bank for money. They continued to talk. I had imagined that they felt that someone asking for money didn’t happen on the streets of Narrowsburg and in their world and their inattention I guess it didn’t.

Every society has its marginalized peoples and in the rural scenario it is the mentally ill that are housed in adult homes, left to wander small town America. Interestingly, because the residents of an adult home are presumably being taken care of, we don’t necessarily see them as marginalized, even as we exhibit mild frustration when we superficially intersect with them either in the library, the grocery store or on the roadways.

The streets of Berkeley are home to many, and invisible to many as well.

The first of my three Intersession classes was an exploration of how to develop media skills for public ministry. Throughout the week, we explored the different frames that people use to interpret the world and how not to trigger unspoken concepts by carefully using language. We spent a lot of time learning how to be interviewed and how, no matter what, to stay on message.

I was surprised to find that frames, our way of making sense in the world, dominate our perception and essentially rule our lives. I was surprised how easy it was to stay on message, once you understood it as the goal. I was intrigued in consider how many times I start to talk without a precise idea of what I want to accomplish in saying what I am about to say.

In understanding the frames in which we live our lives, we explored the metaphor of the family put forth by George Lakoff in his book "Whose Freedom?" Do you go through your world as a nurturant parent who understands the systemic circumstances of that man outside the bank in Narrowsburg or the plight of the homeless woman having someone’s leftover pizza for Sunday breakfast? Do you subscribe to a strict father model which determines that people who are homeless or in adult homes are exercising choice and living the consequences of not being diligent enough to change their circumstances?

While I’m not saying anything new here and undoubtedly am not being comprehensive enough, the “get a hold of yourself” and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality has a stranglehold on our perceptions and seems to be a factor in every reaction that we have. At the same time, we seem to be hard wired to be loyal, to nation, to family, to community. It seems that as we perceive that we live in a deteriorating world, we come to awareness that these two beliefs cannot serve as a foundation of our understanding and we become insular and withdraw from active participation. Like the two men in Narrowsburg, we continue our conversation as if it hasn’t been intruded upon--which brings me to the second part of my learning, staying on message.

The concept and discipline of figuring out a message and sticking to it seems to set the dichotomy of conflicting beliefs in a slightly different light. Developing a message, really knowing what we think and why and being committed to it, seems to open a door that expands our understanding of how we are being affected by our culture. And through this understanding and self-discipline, we don’t have to shut off the world, ignore the intrusion, get angry or become depressed. By acknowledging the ambiguity in the world, understanding the frame in which it is being presented, becoming aware of how it is imperceptively affecting us, we can return to our core understanding of what we define as meaningful in our lives.

We have the opportunity, and a useful tool, to return to our home away from home, over and over again.