“Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do.” ~Voltaire
(nom de plume for François-Marie Arouet), French writer,
historian and philosopher (1694-1778)
Brittany Utopia, the real estate agent
assigned to us by my company to handle our relocation, was talking non-stop as
she had been since picking us up at LAX, the Los Angeles International Airport.
We had quickly tossed our bags into the spacious trunk of her pearl-colored,
double-parked luxury sedan. I was directed to sit in the front seat while
Teresa had been relegated to the back.
We were provided with folders full of
information about Simi Valley, replete with listings of houses for sale at
prices which all seemed above the price range we had identified. Brittany’s
constant patter was punctuated by her repeatedly gesturing toward me with her
right hand.
No amount of persuasion was going to reassure
us at this point, however. We were moving from Columbus, Ohio to Southern
California. Nothing could soften the impact of the sticker shock we were
experiencing. We had already resigned ourselves to an hour-long commute just to
find a community we might be able to afford to live in.
Brittany, on the other hand, seemed to
have ignored the questionnaire we had completed and was following her own
agenda. At every listing visited, we received the usual realtor-speak: spacious
kitchen, wonderful light, great neighborhood, a park nearby, convenient
shopping, a great fixer-upper, etc. Each
time we had to ask, “How much is this one?” only to be disappointed by the
response.
Jet-lagged and dejected, we were finally
being driven to our hotel room by our captor, but only after we promised to
resume our “quest for the perfect home,” the next morning.
“What about Moorpark?” I asked casually.
“What about it?” was Brittany’s retort, her veneer cracking ever so slightly.
“Isn’t it the next community over?” I inquired. “Well, yes it is,” came the
response. “But, you don’t want to live there. It’s just not right for
you.” She seemed to be driving faster,
as if she was in a hurry to get us to our hotel.
“I read that the house prices might be a
little better there,” I continued. “Well, of course they are, because no one
wants to live there! Moorpark doesn’t have a great reputation, and you want a
house in a good community with a good reputation… Don’t you?” And before I
could ask another question, she chirped, “Oh look, there’s your hotel. Isn’t it
nice?”
The car swung abruptly into the parking
lot and came to a sudden halt under the canopy. Brittany popped the trunk and
hopped out of the driver’s side. She had pulled two of our three suitcases out
of the trunk before we reached the back of the car. “My card has my pager
number on it if you need to reach me before tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow morning bright and early
and I’m sure we will find you the perfect house right here in Simi Valley.”
As she drove off, I couldn’t help but
wonder if Brittany Utopia was her stage name.
What’s in a name? For that matter, what’s
in the name of a town? Particularly, if it is the town in which we grew up. In
the Gospel of John, the disciple Nathanael, who we know today as St
Bartholomew, asks the question: “Can anything good come out of
Nazareth?” (John 1:46)
Why does the place where we came from or
the place with which we are associated make a difference? How many stores or businesses add locations
like Beverly Hills, London, Paris, and Hong Kong just to enhance their
prestige? Why do companies pay exponentially more for addresses on Park Avenue,
Rodeo Drive, or Wilshire Boulevard because it “sends the right message”?
What if instead of Jesus of Nazareth, Our
Savior was Jesus of Beverly Hills or Jesus of Santa Monica or Jesus of Wall
Street? Somehow we have come to believe the locations with which we are
associated add or detract from us.
This thinking is not necessarily sound.
Even the Magi made the mistake of looking for “the newborn King” in a big city
rather than in a tiny town called Bethlehem. Our value as a human being and our
contribution to the common good is no better if we come from a rich suburb and
no worse if we hail from an unknown, small town.
Nazareth, in Jesus’ time, was a small
working-class village of less than 500 people. There is a certain reassurance
that God chose to appear to us in the midst of a poor working-class family.
“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Yes, Jesus came out of Nazareth and he was more than good!
It should not be the place that defines
us; rather it should be we who define the place. The answer to the question “What
good can come out of this place?” should be “The good that is within us and our
willingness to make it so.” Ask yourself what good can come out of your
country, your state, your town, your parish…
Dear God: May this place be better because
of me.
“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all
the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all
the people you can, as long as ever you can.”
~John Wesley, Anglican cleric and Christian theologian; founder of the
Methodist movement (1703-1791)
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