Our Family in New Orleans
Photo by Kate Albers
I wanted my lyrics to reflect the heart and struggle of a homeless person and to speak a message of love and hope to anyone who heard it. I thought about the experiences I had had with homeless people. There was a memory of visiting a shelter with my family for Christmas one year. We made and packaged a lot of cookies to distribute and sang a number of songs. I was in junior high at the time and my siblings were even younger.We lived in New Orleans at the time. I never did forget that experience - the eyes and the gratitude of those people. I regret that I have not done it since. Within a few months or years of that experience, my brother and I were with my father once when he bought a meal for a homeless man. As I recall, it was in a lower income part of downtown. We stopped inside of a Chinese restaurant for his meal. Then my dad sat with him as he ate and we listened to part of his story. I can’t say I recall the story, but I do remember the experience and the large red eyes and worn black hat of that man. There was the memory of spending time with children in the 9th ward on Saturday mornings through a problem at our church called the Sonshine Ministry. They were not exactly homeless but my memory associates them as somewhere close to that. We would play with them, have a brief sort of Bible lesson with them, and leave them with sack lunches. They were beautiful children leading very hard loves from a terribly early start. I can remember them laughing and running with us and later scrambling in line for a second sack lunch. Last, but not least, soon after I had first moved to Texas my family got involved with group called feed one. Once or twice a month we’d buy and prep hotdogs, chips, and soda cans to distribute to the homeless in downtown, Dallas. The memory of doing that stands out in my mind because the reality of the their situation seemed so undeniable as we handed them their food out there on the streets, in the cold, in the middle of the night. We kept it up for a while and as we got “busy” we stopped.
Looking back on those memories I realized that in a word, I might consider the homeless to be forgotten. Those of us with homes can so easily ignore them, judge them, or in the best case, do some kind deed for them and then return to our cozy homes without ever giving them a second thought.
Some people perceive that the homeless are and remain homeless because they fail to make the effort to change their situation, the assumption being that the homeless are to blame for their living situation. That may or may not be true in some cases, but certainly not every one. The stories of the men, women, boys, and girls who live without homes are more intricate than one might imagine. Would you believe that some of the those people you see out on the streets are doctors and lawyers?.. Of course before you could believe that you would have to give it thought. And so many of us fail to do so, which is scarcely better than the people who walk by and offer only judgement.
Who on earth looks out for those who can’t look out for themselves? Who looks at the homeless and offers the promise of a home and unconditional love? Only God, in his good time. That thought is spring from which I wrote the song which is in fact the prayer I imagine I would pray if someday I found myself homeless. That prayer takes into consideration some of God’s promises and the basic needs of man, the struggles of those who do what they can to turn things around and as well as our desire to be understood at the very least and loved at best.
I drew not only from the memories of those experiences I had of interactions with the homeless, but from my own experiences where I struggled for things I needed, felt judged for situations that I could not change despite my best efforts, and misunderstood or even unloved. The song became very personal for me and I hope that all who hear it are able to relate in some way. Furthermore, I hope, particular for the purpose of this album that it moves listeners to action - that is to do what they can to help someone in need or change someone’s heart or mind about the homeless.