Through circumstance or conviction, through accident or design, I have spent much of my life as a member of a minority position or unpopular view, as an outlier who embraces heterodoxy. I grew up a liberal in the vastly conservative state of Alabama, then recently moved to uber-red Texas. In the midst of fanatical Alabama fans who rated their identity and self-worth by the fortunes of their team, I was an Auburn man, mindful to be grateful for success and gracious in win or loss. In a religious landscape dominated by Baptists and Methodists, I became an Episcopalian in my adulthood.
One of the most profound changes I underwent was my entry into junior high school. Prior to this, I attended schools on the less-affluent side of town. In my early schooling, the students were taught more or less together, and I was grouped with kids I had gone to school with from first grade. Upon entering seventh grade, we were separated into different levels, and I was tracked into high-level classes. It seemed as if the great majority of my classmates were kids I had not gone to school with before, who had known each other for six years and who represented a higher socioeconomic class than I did. I was always very conscious of the fact that I was poorer than a lot of the other students; I did come in for my fair share of ridicule, as most kids that age do, but my own self-consciousness played me false as well. I can joke now with no shame whatsoever that I came not only from a trailer park, but from the back end of the trailer park closest to the dumpster, but living through the differentness was mortifying. It set me to identify with the poor, the oppressed, the set-apart.
I read heavily and constantly, and consumed television uncritically and voraciously as well, with all the desperate hunger of a child who wanted to be someone else other than the ungraceful and unlovely socially awkward kid in the mirror. Although my fiction and fantasy world was varied and universal in its scope, I absorbed many common lessons from books, from TV, from movies: The true test of a man was to treat everyone fairly, most especially enemies because everyone treats friends well: Real riches lay not in amassing possessions and power, but in surrounding oneself with people that matter, in doing actions to benefit other people: Modesty and graciousness are more powerful character traits than boastfulness and anger. It can be argued that watching too much TV and movies have ruined generations of Americans, but there are powerful lessons there for anyone watching. You would be hard-pressed to find a story in which the protagonist triumphs because of a hard, uncaring, abusive personality. From my constant immersion, I learned all these lessons and more. My focus grew to be on supporting those in trouble, extending a hand of kindness to anyone who needed it, to reverence for the underdog who fought even though the cause might be hopeless.
By the time I graduated high school, I was a full-blown dissenter of every type. One of my favorite truisms is that one should always comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. But once in college and in the presence of other people of modest means and unpopular political views, I found that I was not all alone on the continuum of politics and class standing. Joining the Episcopal Church, which practices the "big-tent" philosophy, taught me that I can be part of a religious community with people of very diverse needs and views who may be called to serve and worship God in many different modes. In the presence of others with some of the same beliefs I hold, I lost my sense of being surrounded and embattled. The whole of the family of humankind is similar-there are so many divergent views and approaches and needs evidenced by our actions, but our commonality holds us together.
So in the final analysis, the beliefs I hold and the associations I have built matter less than the commonalities we all share. Through experience and through conviction, I break bread with all manner of folks. Although I may vote or believe differently than some of my friends, I respect what they hold to be dear. I still know that other people can teach and affect me.
I know that as long as my heart is open my mind cannot be closed. Aren't we in all this together?
Thoughtful, I enjoyed reading this.
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