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“Maybe it's Cincinnati,” she said.

“No,” I said, “It's not Cincinnati.” It was Cincinnati.

When I meet people I like to guess where they're from based on their accents. Wisconsin, Chicago or Michigan? I never miss. Once I detected that our English motor coach driver came from Manchester. A certain well-known choral director from the Western side of Traverse City thought I had set it up by slipping the bloke a fiver.

Yesterday I met a woman with a mysterious accent. I thought I heard Philadelphia or South Jersey. It clearly wasn't New York City. Boston maybe, or even the Maritimes in Canada. She was confident I would never get it right. “I will tell you befoah you leave,” she said. That “oah” instead of “r” interested me. But I had to surrender. With a broad smile she explained: “I was classified deaf as a child. So I have some of the pronunciations usual for the deaf.” (She pointed to the industrial-strength hearing aids in her ears.) “My parents were Jewish refugees from Germany. They did not speak English. I learned it from a German lady who had gotten her English in England. But I grew up in Cincinnati and I still call it home.”

Well no wonder. Normally I can spot a Cincinnatian a mile away. It's the distinctive “ou” for “o” and the sprinkling of Dixie. But how could I expect to identify the accent of a nearly-deaf woman taught English by a German who had learned the language in England?

She calls Cincinnati her home. We met in our church kitchen because she had brought food for a bunch of people who have no homes. Our congregation takes its turn housing the homeless this week. They come from all over. The other morning I drove two of them into town. The tall one, called Tree, came north from Florida two weeks ago. Why, I asked. “Because my real dad kicked me out and my step-dad won't let me stay with him and my mom. I have anger issues,” he said. (I had detected his north Florida accent.)

Friends sometimes ask whether I think of northern Michigan as home. We have lived here 16 years, the longest I have stayed in one place my whole life. But I have no answer. I have two homes: here and Indiana, where I (mostly) grew up and where my family (mostly) lives. The people staying at our church this week have no choices.

One young homeless guest went ballistic at check-in. The man staffing the homeless program for a community agency kicked him out for the week. We are basking in temperatures between zero and 35, with at least a little snow each day. Our church is three miles from town. This young man, after screaming at us for a while, began the long walk. It happened just as I prepared to go home. I passed him walking, leaning forward into the wind. It felt totally wrong. So I circled around and caught up to him again. I told him I was from the church and could I give him a ride into town? He got in, a puppy whipped by his loss of a place to sleep and the harsh weather.

He actually meant to walk to a homeless shelter about eight miles away. I knew there was no room in that inn. I asked if he had anyplace else to go. Yes, he said, he had a cousin who would take him in for one night, no more. I took him to that house, and they took him in for the one night.

Lord, how did I get so blessed as to have been born to people who loved each other, and me, and who worked to build a family and a life, and who gave me a solid foundation? Thank you.