Sisters! Brothers!

Just thinking about Curtis Mayfield this morning.  When I moved to Philadelphia in late 1999 to work for Americorps, the world was about to end.  I was living in the safe suburbs with my Italian friend and her mother and sister.  Then I met my future husband and moved into the ghetto.  I naturally slipped in next to everyone on the subways, completely uninhibited, unable of shock.  I thrived well in the city.  There is an ease I feel there with humanity, the worst of and some of the best.  I feel it's easier to care and love for each other as much as it is to hate and despise and segregate in the crowds of the city streets, buses, grocers.  I had more mercy and grace there then I have in my little castle here in East Tennessee, where when I walk outside I'm not faced with immediate decisions concerning homeless, beaten children, prostitution, lost souls, hungry folks, poor crazy men and women wandering the streets.  Outside here it takes a more trained eye to recognize need, and it's far easier to ignore the needs that our eyes don't miss.

To live as humble servants of those that are the most difficult to serve, that's something there.  My mom hates the city.  Maybe she needs to live there for a year.  I don't particularly want to move back to a major city again, so maybe that's where I need to be?

I listened to alot of Curtis Mayfield in West Philly.  I can't wait to visit the Simple Way.  Heck, maybe I'll say forget the film and stay there. . .

Listening to, "If's There's Hell Below" - fair warning, if you aren't familiar with Mayfield, there are lyrics that could be taken as racially offensive, while really they are just social commentaries of the times.