Engage: Part One

During the week I will post excerpts from last week's message.
People are attracted to the suburbs for many reasons. We want to get away from the hectic lifestyle of in-town living. We want to divide our lives in that I work over here and I live and play over here. We like the safety of the suburbs. We want our kids to go to good schools. Suburbia is the context and the setting for the fulfillment of people’s hopes and dreams. A place for new opportunities. The suburbs promise prosperity, upward mobility, a healthy life, safety and tranquility, the best place to bring up kids.
When you moved into the neighborhood you probably signed a covenant. The covenant says you won’t put your car on blocks in the front yard, you will not use the old toilet for a flower pot, the grass will not get as high as your knees and your child or dog won’t leave a smelly gift for the neighbor in his front yard.
We also sign an imaginary honor code. It is a code that rather we were aware of it or not by the simple fact of moving into the suburbs all of us sign. It is obvious in our conversations or lack of. It is obvious in the way we structure our lives. Most of us live by this honor code until the end but we don’t ever bring it up. Men ignore it on the golf course by talking about sports, politics, or nothing at all. Women out of pride refuse to bring it up in conversation around coffee or tea. It is an honor code that destroys life, destroys family, and destroys children. It is an honor code that leads to a shallow life, a life with no depth. Here is the honor code of suburbia: “Everything is fine” and “my life is in order.” The day you arrived at your new house you stood in the drive way as the movers moved you in and you looked around at your husband, children, house, and neighbors and you said, “Everything is great and I am finally getting some structure to my life.” That is the secret pledge every person makes to live in the suburbs. Don’t believe me try this experiment when you are at the little league field this week. Ask someone how they are doing. What will they say, “I am fine?” Then ask about their family and they will tell you about little Timmy who is a great soccer player, little Suzie who is at choral recital, and daddy, husband Jim Bob who is working late today so that he can take off on Friday to go play golf with the guys. Ask her how she is doing she will in one way or another tell you: “I am fine.” Which translates I have my SUV with my child is a star student at perfect elementary sticker on the bumper. I am not saying this is bad. I am just saying this is the honor code: “everything is fine and my life is in order” that we in the suburbs live by. The problem is we continue to live by this honor code even when life is not fine and my life is not in order. Or that we have come to define a “fine life” by the things we own, drive, or live-in and order is understood as comfort. Another way of saying the honor code is that I am comfortable.