Be yourself. Everyone else is ?already taken."
-Oscar Wilde
In 1854, during the Victorian era, Oscar Wilde was born into an educated family in Dublin. Highly intelligent, he spoke English, French and Greek. He was an artist, poet, playwrite, and a famous wit. But Wilde was also gay. When the father of Wilde's partner had him charged with gross indecency, Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labor in the Galway prison where he suffered miserably from dysentery and malnutrition. Still a young man, he died soon after he was released.
We are each as unique as the flowers of the field. We grow from differing seeds and survive the weather of our lives in different ways. We are black, white, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight, tall, short, thin, and fat. Some of us have had great childhoods, others not so much. Our religious practices are different, as are our understandings of the Great I Am. But at the end of the day, we are all His. No one is less His or more His.
In our work to unite the people of Indianapolis, we find segregation of all kinds and it's ironic that much separation and judgment is generated by those who are fervent followers of Christ. Is it possible we haven't considered how crucial loving our neighbor really is…what a test it is of our commitment as well as our worthiness to serve a God who loves us all and has put a piece of himself in every human being?
In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said by judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are entitled as much as we. Whatever sin one might believe another is committing, everyone of us is a sinner. As our wise mothers used to say, "he who points the finger has three fingers pointing at himself."
It is not who we are, but whose we are that matters. At UNITE INDY, we have enjoyed the great pleasure it is to know others authentically, as we open ourselves to people who have often been shunned and slighted. In each of us there is a pearl in the battered shell of one who has survived another's judgement. We all know how it feels.
Maybe we should cut it out.
Jim
