As a kid did you imagine that you’d be living in the suburban strip mall paradise of Prosper, Texas? Did you think there would be something else for you? Did you imagine, “Well, I’ll either live in the heart of a city with the cool kids or I’ll live in the forest with trees. But I’ll never live near a strip mall.” And those words are still echoing in your ears, judging you. You’re own Dreams are pointing at you and saying, “But you promised! You said there would be more for us! You said we would go, see, fly, run, live! And here we are! In Suburban America! Now, ever night, the best that we hope for is to watch TV and go to bed. How did this happen?”
Have you heard the Ray LaMontagne song, “Beg, Steal, or Borrow”?
So your hometown’s bringin’ you down
Are you drownin’ in the small talk and the chatter?
Are you gonna step into line like your daddy done?
Punchin’ the time and climbing life’s long ladder
Well, one of these days is gonna be right soon
You’ll find your legs and go and stay gone
Young man, full of big plans
And thinkin’ about tomorrow
Young man, gonna make a stand
You beg, you steal, you borrow
You beg, you steal, you borrow
The song is about a young kid wanting to break out of small town life (maybe suburban life?). He doesn’t want to just get a job and the thought of doing what his dad did sounds like death to him. He doesn’t want to have to live with the same people year after year, who are going nowhere and doing nothing. He’s got plans! Dreams!
And what does he do to get them? Anything he has to. Beg, steal, or borrow. Just get me out of here.
I can’t be sure LaMontagne meant the song to be ironic, but I wonder if it is. I wonder if he is saying, “At what cost do you achieve your dreams? Do you have to walk away from everything that gave you life? Do you turn your back on that which raised you? And if you have to do that, is it worth it? Should you do it? Is it possible to fulfill a dream by despising the things that gave you the life and space to have dreams at all?”
The point is I love Prosper. And there’s not anything better out there than this suburban strip mall town. The question is, what will we make of it? Will we give ourselves to our town? Will we be grateful for the small town chatter? Will we struggle to not look past each other for something “better”? Will we struggle to figure out how this town and each other are the dream itself?
May our eyes not wander above each other’s heads to some ever receding horizon.
May our hands keep hold of the plow, working and building into each other’s lives. And may our feet hold fast to the path set before us.
I’m grateful for you, Church.
Tom+