Which group do you belong to?

July 30, 2021

Pastor Freed’s blog, Jack’s Winning Words, once again provided the inspiration for today’s post – “At the end of the day, I’d rather be excluded for who I include, than be included for who I exclude.”  (Eston Williams)

Are you included in groups with labels like bigots, racists, homophobes, or misogamists?  Perhaps you better identify with groups who identify with terms like caring, inclusive, justice  or equality. It is ironic that many of the members of those first groups also claim to be in a group that they call the “moral majority”. They make some claim (indefensible as is may be) to a moral high ground for their exclusionary position. In fact, their position is neither moral nor a majority. It doesn’t take long, once one starts excluding whole classes or groups of people, that you find yourself in the minority.

Another sad truth about taking an exclusionary position in life is that it limits the experience of life and the knowledge and wisdom that can be gleaned from those experiences. Once you confine yourself to the small box that exclusions put you in, you become trapped in that box, just like a mime. Your world closes in around you the more that you exclude others and the experiences that they bring with them. The world can become a lonely, colorless and boring place once you have excluded all of those who, “aren’t like me.”

So, at the end of your day look back and ask yourself, “Did I exclude anyone or any group today?” Then ask why. Was it out of some unfounded fear that you apply to a whole class or group of people?  Was it out of ignorance or misunderstanding? Did you just react to exclude based upon something that you heard or saw somewhere (maybe on a social media site) and just accepted as the truth without thinking about it or investigating it for yourself? How do you rationalize your exclusions? Is it just that- rationalization?

At the root of many decisions to exclude (or avoid) are unfounded and unchallenged fears. Mostly they are fears of the unknown – things or people that you have not experienced before. Perhaps before you start out today, you can pray for the strength and bravery to allow yourself to experience all of the people that you meet today, excluding no one. If you do that, you will soon find the world to be a much more interesting and colorful place, with opinions and points of view on things that you never knew existed. If you can appreciate them and internalize them a whole new realm of knowledge and wisdom will open up to you. You will find that some of the old “truths’ that governed and restricted your life fade away. At the end of that day, you will feel much better about including all those people.

Which group do you want to belong to?

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Posted by Norm Werner

Don’t know, don’t say…Don’t be a dwarf

December 8, 2014

Re-blogged from the Jack’s Winning Words blog –

 “To like an individual because he’s black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn’t white.”  (e.e. cummings)  Reverse black and white in the quote.  Does it make a difference?  Substitute LGBT and Straight for black and white.  Does it make a difference?  Many of the problems around us these days seem to have root in the fact that we do not see people as people.  You can’t legislate love.  Unless it comes from the heart, the problems will continue.    😉  Jack

I suspect that Leonardo da Vinci put his finger on a big part of the problem that Jack wrote about today when he said – “You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.”  Too much of the bigotry in the world today is based in ignorance; opinionatedignorance about the backgrounds and perspectives of the people against whom the bigotry is directed. It’s impossible for a white person to understand the impact of the repressive environment that many non-white people feel and experience day-to-day in America. What chance do you have to establish an understanding and appreciation for someone else, if you start from a base of fear because of their color?  

There was a political cartoon in the paper this weekend that captured some of that. It showed a young black person backed up against a wall by a heavily armed white policeman and an average citizen looking out their window at the policeman. Each had a thought bubble above their head with the work “fear” in it. While that cartoon was within the context of recent police shootings; it clearly demonstrates the pre-existing mental context that colors the interactions of many people with each other. That is a pre-existing prejudice that gets things off on the angry accuserwrong foot.  Chris Crutcher, author of Whale Talk, put it well – “…racist (bigoted) thought and action says far more about the person they come from than the person they are directed at.”
Something similar may be said about our notions of the LGBT community. Many censure those in the LBGT community because they do not understand it. Armistead Maupin put it well when he said – “I know I can’t tell you what it’s like to be gay. But I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not hiding behind words, like family and decency and Christianity.”  Having just gone through an election where every homophobic bigot on the ballot chose to hide behind those words, Maupin’s words ring true.

So, one may surmise that bigotry is based upon ignorance; but its real strength is based in
rejectedpreventing the exploration of knowledge about the topic, thereby shutting out the discovery of the truth. Like many other things in life that we fear, because they represent unknowns; fears based upon color or lifestyle evaporate once we know and understand the truth. As E.H.Chapin put it – “Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.”

Don’t let yourself become a dwarf. Don’t know…don’t say. Go seek the truth.

 

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Posted by Norm Werner