The Square Peg

Windows of acceptability...it's sort of like when you think the lady in front of you in the left lane driving 45 in a 55 mph zone is an idiot, and the guy who blows your doors off as he passes you doing 82 in a 70 is a maniac.

Those are your windows of acceptability. Anything outside of that is unacceptable, annoying, dumb, ridiculous; or whatever adjective describes your feeling.

But I wonder how many people exclude others because those people don't fall into their windows of acceptability. Have you ever avoided a conversation, a relationship, a dialog, or just being neighborly to someone because:

she doesn't go to church

he's gay

she's got a Christian fish on the back of her van

he's an atheist

he's Muslim

she's black

his arms are covered in tattoos and his earlobes can hold his cell phone

he's got the wrong Presidential candidate sticker on his car's bumper

I'd like to see us break down our boxes and get out of our comfort zones. I'd like to see less "us vs. them" and more "we." And could we leave judgment at the door to better focus on our relationships? I'm not talking about making someone who is your polar opposite your best friend. But how about not keeping him as your enemy?

Peace.

Have you ever stopped to think about why you believe what you believe? I’ve been examining some of the beliefs that formed in my heart and mind while growing up, and realized not all were intentionally instructed. Many were passed on with specific intent. Some were accepted and I took ownership of them while others were rejected and I formed different beliefs. But more was caught than taught. Perhaps that’s true of you, too.

I was told that God created everything, and that He loved it all. And I believed it. But I didn’t like church much as a kid; it was full of rules (mostly “don't’s”; very few “do’s”) and righteousness seemed to be measured by what I subtracted from my life, rather than by what I added to the world. This disturbed me.

Nobody ever instructed me to “be prejudice”, yet racism and bigotry were never classified as unChrist-like by the church we occasionally visited. In fact, I don’t recall it ever being mentioned. But even as a little girl, I knew hating a group of people for something they couldn’t control (skin color, eye shape, etc) was not only ridiculous, it was wrong. I didn’t want somebody to dislike me because I had brown eyes or was left-handed. I was fascinated by our different skin colors, though.

I loved milk when I was little. White milk and chocolate milk have similar chemical structure, and I thought they were both delicious. And in my five-year-old mind, I likened ethnicity with milk. For real. I deduced that God liked white and chocolate milk. And since I knew chocolate came in milk and dark varieties, I concluded my Panamanian next-door neighbor was milk chocolate flavored, and my upstairs African neighbor was dark (fudge) flavored. I couldn’t figure out what kind of milk Asians were (I didn’t know about buttermilk then), but milk was milk, and it was all good; the strawberry kind, the chocolate kind, and the white kind I poured on my Fruit Loops every morning.

I’ve been attending church most of my adult life. And the math I’m most concerned with is the REALationships being multiplied as a result of truth + love.

Diversity doesn’t = division; unity doesn’t require conformity.
I’m just sayin’.

In the 11 days since the election, I have gotten a few emails and texts from people with varying pictures of the “new White House”. These are supposed to be humorous images of what the front lawn will look like after our new President-elect takes office.

I am offended.
And embarrassed.
And confused.

Confused about how people can express such fear of one man getting a new job one minute and then talk about how God is their rock the next. If you believe the latter portion of that sentence, why are you worrying about the former?

If you’re one who has experienced God’s love & forgiveness, I hope you’re not one of the people fanning the flames of the hatred fire and fortifying the racial walls between people. Surely our time would better spent praying for wisdom and clarity for President-elect Obama. Rather than stereotyping and mocking part of his culture, maybe we could start praying for his safety since some small minded, hatemonger is probably going to attempt to take Mr. Obama’s life.

I hope we wear the knees out of our jeans praying for our new Commander-in-Chief.