The Promised Land

Rolling down Tybrisa Street this morning I notice quiet ones sitting on benches or chairs on their porches silently staring into another universe.

Some hold Styrofoam cups of coffee and others take long drags off of cigarettes. They've either just woken up or are preparing to go to sleep. They don't see me though I am in plain sight in front of them. They are lost in hopes and dreams or they struggle to keep their despair and worries off of the ground.

At the end of the street the sun is throwing diamonds on the ocean. There is a surprisingly large number of people wearing bathing suits at 7:30 in the morning. They are tourists squeezing every bit of joy out of just ... being here.

I turn on the other side of Spankey's heading west on Izlar Avenue. It is a combination of long and short term rental units. An old man with a long white beard and numerous tattoos is sitting staring into his coffee. The road is very narrow here and if I held my arm out I could easily grab the coffee from his hand. He doesn't notice me.

The world is divided into haves and have-nots and it is no different on Tybee Island. I've always lived with a foot in both worlds. Here in my home I have friends who have a lot and others who struggle every month for money to pay the rent. Yet we are bound together by the desire to live in this place.

Walter Brueggeman wrote a book "The Land: Place as Gift, Promise and Challenge in Biblical Faith". In it, he says that we all have our Promised Lands and people of faith do whatever it takes to get there.

For some it is easy. They have enough that, even in a down economy, they can live wherever they want. For others though the struggle to get to where you are meant to be is daunting. They pick up extra work wherever they can ... cleaning houses, picking up shifts as a waitress or learning to play bass to make money in a band. Or they leave the comforts of where they are, who they are with or what they have always done.

It is humbling to watch.

Rolling my bicycle west on Izlar Avenue, watching people figure out another day, makes me think of these things. I have a friend in St. Martin named Adrian. He is handsome, black, built like a stone statue with a beautiful smile and has worked as a waiter for the past twenty plus years. The couple he works for are not happy. The work environment is pretty rotten but the money is good.

Once he walked up to take my order, gave me a hug and sighed. He looked tired and worn out.

"You OK?" I asked.

"I been here twenty years," he explains in his French Creole accent, "what's one more day?"

One day at a time ... indeed.

But he does it because he loves where he is.

Last night Dedra and I met dear friends at Marlin Monroe's for dinner and entertainment. Roma was holding court with her new haircut as she does every Sunday. The ocean breeze cooled things off and the sea oats danced on the dunes. Michael Moore was playing music and invited my friend Joanie to sing. Now Joanie is a major talent who just lost being discovered. She sang two Janis Joplin songs and blew everyone away as she always does.

Once she sang "Amazing Grace" in Bar Church and God cried at how beautiful it was.

"This is wonderful," Dee says at one point.

Raising my hands in the air I proclaim, "What is not to love? Who gets to do this?"

And the diamonds danced on the ocean. A salty breeze kissed our cheeks. Seagulls squalled in the air. Sea oats continued to dance in the sand dunes which are pristine. The blue sky was brilliant. Dolphins broke the surface of the sea.

Moses wandered around for forty years and went through all kinds of struggles to get to the Promised Land. Many of the people sitting around me continue the struggle to get to ... or to stay in ... the Promised Land. It is a dream of a place ... and it is the place of our dreams.

What we want out lives to be ... happy, fulfilled, full of love, with the person we are truly meant to be with ... all have to have an embodiment ... a Promised Land ... a place where our dreams come true.

Getting there can be a bitch. Staying there though ... well ... once you've been to the Promised Land there is no going back.