Going back to Detroit

When Dave & I decided to hitch ourselves together until the cold, clammy hands of death separated us I looked my besties directly in the eyes and said, “we’ll move back to Detroit in 2 years.”

“Promise,” they asked with slight mistrust.

“I promise,” I said with bold confidence.  Dave & I thought we’d give “the zoo,” a two-year trial period before packing up our little family and heading back to the Nation’s crime capital.

We have been in the zoo for 10.5 years.

It’s not that we got stuck here at all, it’s that things started going really well with our ministry here and -as it turned out- the space away from my family was good for us all.

But my besties and my hometown got unintentionally left behind.

I still think about Detroit, about what I love and what I miss.  I still think about what a bad rap it gets and how its been abandoned.  Twice, Dave & I have taken groups of college students for 6-week Detroit Urban projects to explore God in the city of Detroit.  Those summers were  A – M – A – Z -I -N -G.

I can still remember walking through Downtown laying our hands on buildings and praying for the city.  I cried for the brokenness in my city like Jesus wept for Jerusalem.

My friend & InterVarsity colleague, Lisa writes a blog about Detroit that often makes me think Dave & I should one day consider going back.

It makes me think we should join Jeff & Lisa, and many others in moving back to the heart of the city to be part of it’s renovation and restoration.

But then I came across this blog about a ridiculously ambitious renovation of a Detroit home with these scary pictures of a dilapidated house and I felt -literally- shivers.

Literal friggin’ shivers.

Seeing pictures of a broken down house, with a happy-go-lucky white couple trying to renovate in the middle of Detroit, honestly…. makes this Detroit-bred biracial chick feel nauseous.

The sinful part of me wants nothing to do with it.

Nothing.

(And God help the Biskies if we EVER move into a house that needs renovations).  I’m not even kidding, our marriage wouldn’t last through home renovations.  We take our houses on a NO-work-to-be-done basis.

It’s not just that homes that need renovating scare me  TO DEATH  —–TO LITERAL DEATH, it’s the idea of it all: going back to the hood, engaging with the problems and issues of the city in a less controlled environment than I currently enjoy and HEAVEN HELP US when it comes to dealing with the racial issues Detroit faces.

I left Detroit as a single black woman, confused and midly racist. I would go back as a biracial chick -more evolved in my racial identity- to INCLUDE my white heritage, married to a white man with my little light-as-white-skinned babies.  IT’S A WHOLE NEW WORLD, Y’ALL.

Please trust me when I say that I LOVE the idea of whites (or whomever) moving into the city of Detroit intentionally…it’s just that the idea of MY white husband with my black self and our two lovely tri-racial children moving into the city of Detroit intentionally leaves me stressed. the. freak. out.

Which makes me think, were not ready.

Well, honestly, I am not ready ,though Dave is surprisingly open to the idea of taking up residence in “the D” someday.

But, I think about it.

A lot.

And maybe one day if Jeff & Lisa (Chinese Asian-American & white, fyi) ever buy a house in Detroit and ask us to move in on the block…

…we’ll be ready then.

Maybe.

Until then -despite all my issues- I still love you Detroit and long for your restoration,