Life in the Real World

It’s two days before Thanksgiving and we’re sitting in the Newark airport ready to board a plane destined for our hometown of Greensboro. 

I’m sure most of us will be a little more cognizant this week of things we’re thankful for.  I’ll be grateful for trees and open spaces and family and friendly faces.  But I’ll also be thankful for our life in New York.  For the new friends, new challenges, our new life. 

I’m sure I’ll enjoy a little extra personal space while down south (a Honda accord will feel monstrous compared to a crammed subway car). And yet I’m very aware that I’ll miss the crowds and masses which seem to go hand in hand with the city.

You see, in New York you are totally immersed in the world at all times.  There’s no escaping to a secluded car for a long solo ride on the highway.  It’s just you and the real world - good bad and plain ugly.

This real world can be quite exhilirating when it means hearing the finest voices in the world or dining on some of the world’s greatest culinary delights.  It’s not so inviting when it’s dressed up in raggedy clothes begging for spare change at the top of the subway stairs. 

I’ll be the first to admit that all too often I choose to define my own reality as the pretty version which makes me happy, far too eager to dismiss the plight of the marginalized and less fortunate or to conjure up stories of personal irresponsibility which make it easier to turn the other way.

I’m not proud to say this.  I’m just being honest.

But over the last four months, living in the midst of the dense melting pot of success and need which is New York, I’ve found it harder and harder to turn away.  And I think that’s a very good thing.

Yet I don’t think it’s enough just to realize how thankful I am to have a roof over my head, a job I love to put food on the table, families who love us unconditionally.  I’m more aware than ever that we are also called to allow this thankfulness to manifest itself in actions.  Tracy and I made a first step towards this goal last weekend by helping to pack Boxes of Love - large boxes of food and drink which will be distributed to thousands of indigent families in New York for Thanksgiving.  It turns out that we weren’t the only ones feeling the call to reach out others, as more than 300 other volunteers showed up for a project which needed only 75.  So we only ended up packing boxes for about half an hour (after more than an hour waiting in the freezing cold!) 

It was only half an hour.  But it was a start.

I write this not to put us up on a pedestal or to guilt trip you into giving a dollar to the next homeless guy you see.  I write instead because I know that deep down I need to read this more than anyone else.   I hope its an encouragement to you (as it is to me) to think about the world we live in during this Thanksgiving week - not the made-up world we like to immerse ourselves when needing to feel warm and fuzzy, but the real world - good, bad and plain ugly.