Mine is a good life, secure and sweet, but if you didn’t
know me, you might think it is limited to a whole lot of sameness. I live
in a house that was built with 27 others that look just like it, am surrounded
by people whose children go to the same schools mine do, and whose values are
similar to mine. One might see my life and judge that I have no business
talking about discrimination or unconscious bias (not that we live the life of
luxury, but compared to many developing countries we live a charmed existence). And I have to wonder if they
might be right. I fully acknowledge that at times we live in a flimsy, man-made
bubble, and I am grateful for it! It encapsulates and provides a safe and
nourishing space in which our children grow, but don’t think for one moment
that I don’t know that frequent, vigorous “poppings” are also essential.
Daily we should see the nameless strangers all around us not through a distorted,
iridescent lens, but face to beautiful face. It is here where we begin to
see the “other” as “self.”
I will never forget the first time I drove from our little
home in Farmington Hills, MI, headed east on Grand River Road, and crossed the
city line into Detroit, (a city with a charm all its own, I might say; I have a
soft spot). There were many city festivals which we enjoyed there, and
proud residents whose association made our lives richer, but I would be lying
if I didn’t acknowledge that in the early 2000’s there were many garbage-lined
streets, former burned-out meth houses, and trees growing up through the middle
of buildings right downtown. In a very few miles from where my kids
jumped on the trampoline and tapped our maple tree for syrup, there was poverty
like this Utah girl had never seen before.
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| Krispy Kreme outside of West Detroit |
Beside myself, I called my dad, “What bothers me most is not
just that the city suddenly changes, but the color of the skin does too.”
Why is it like that? Why is there still a difference in this ‘enlightened
world?’ Will it ever change?
His response to me was simple, “I don’t know, Sis. All
you can do is make sure that YOU are good to everyone you meet.” And so
it continued (it certainly didn’t start there)—that need to get to know the
stranger on Grand River and 8-Mile, the desire to understand why her life was
so different from mine when after a few minutes conversation, I could clearly
see that we were much the same.
I can’t tell you how many strangers my son and I saw last
week when we popped out of the subway into a sunny Times Square, in New York
City. Newbies to New York, we instantly felt like Northwest salmon
swimming upstream a steady flow of people. “How many faces do you think
we saw today?” Coulson asked me that night. How many stories
existed behind those masks? At Ground Zero I couldn’t help but recognize
that unlike the sea of people in Times Square, these strangers were no longer
nameless to me, as their names seared into my mind as they were forever etched
into marble, but they were faceless. I longed to know who that name
belonged to. . . Who was their family left behind? And how could they get
up in the morning, knowing their loved one’s life was literally crushed by
intolerance and hate?
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| Encountering a sea of faces in NYC |
Peering down the falling fountains into the seemingly
bottomless black holes that were the twin towers, I was instantly transported
back 15 years to family student housing at Purdue University, to my living room
that donned supermarket flooring and cinder block walls; this is where I
potty-trained my second boy, and pretended to be a sleeping Aurora for a
3-year-old Prince Philip to wake with a kiss. My friend had just called
and told me to turn on CNN. I was watching, trying to comprehend the
reports as the second plane flew onto the screen, crashed into the second tower
and caused it to tumble down. I was horrified! Bewildered.
Stunned. How could this be? Who could have done this?
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| Monument at Ground Zero |
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| Purdue apartment - where we learned we could be happy in a shoe box |
My tow-headed boys were one of 3 white kids in our building,
where we had friendly Korean neighbors across the hall, and a Pakistani family
upstairs who filled the stairwell with delicious aromas, our stomachs with
amazing food, and our lives with congenial, lively political conversations.
The boys and I were part of an English conversation moms and tots group, and I
tutored wives in the complex so they could practice their English.
(Really, I just asked them everything I wanted to know about their cultures,
and I should have been paying them.) Though the concept of the One World
Tower didn’t exist in 2001 we lived a model of it there—strangers, who came
from completely different cultures, were all economically humble yet rich in
learning opportunities. We were not only pursuing knowledge, but also an
understanding of the wider world in which we live. We lived in an oasis
of tolerance.
While the horror 9-11 played out on the screen, the events
were still incomprehensible and far away. One Korean friend marveled that
there wasn’t rioting in the streets, that the government wasn’t collapsing,
that everyone was simply going about their lives. She felt that THAT was
what made America great. Just as hate and intolerance caused unimaginable
calamity, from the depths of what was lost, New Yorkers wiped out translucent
barriers and united—that steady, endless river of faces and names—to build
something higher and more beautiful in a vision called “One World.”
It may sound trite, but as I looked out over the Hudson to
Ellis Island from the Observatory, I felt its significance along with the
beautiful Lady Liberty. I imagined throngs of people (possibly some of my
ancestors) reaching that little land of promise, and hoping beyond all hope
that they would be let in. I imagine that this idea of “One World” had
meaning for them too. Would someone like them be welcome here? What
did it mean for me in Indiana? Detroit? New York? What does
it mean to me now?
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| Lady Liberty |
I think it meant then, and still means that we actually see one another—our neighbors, our friends, those inside our bubble, but more importantly those that are outside of it - the ones reaching up asking for a bit of change, or hollow stares from desperate faces playing out across our television screen as war rages in diverse places across the world. And what more startling demographic needs to be seen, to be understood, to be known than the current 60 million refugees worldwide? Do we recognize that the multitudes of faces in the daily media, which like a machine, our brains process day by day, are not nameless strangers, or “huddling masses,” but human beings with hopes and dreams and needs and families and fears, just like you and me. Failing to “see” humans gives our brains permission to classify them as something “other.” And when they remain nameless and strange, we are free to ignore their plight and allow our “bubbles” to veil our empathy. It hurts! It’s uncomfortable, but we must know the unknown, and unleash our kindness.
I stood in awe of a room full of nameless strangers
recently who consisted of people who came together in a community inter-faith
group to discuss refugee relief. I was struck with how many of us have
the tenet to view the “other” as the “self,” (or some version of the “golden
rule”). I was inspired by Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, Muslim, Coptic
Christians, Catholics, Unitarians, Mormons, Wickens, Athiests, Agnostics, and
others who came together with hearts full of compassion for displaced
individuals. It felt so right, setting aside our obvious differences, and
opening our hearts to one another as we opened them to others in need—like this
was exactly what a loving Creator would want. It was here that I began to
recognize that if intolerance truly was the primary factor in the
refugee crisis, tolerance must be the antidote. What was I doing to end it in my own life? How could I
obliterate that bubble, the little ways I distinguish myself from others,
overcome my myopic tendencies and extend my vision to really see the
up-close nameless stranger eye to eye.
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| Interfaith discussion on refugee plight |
I think Dad's advice then is even more applicable now; make sure I am GOOD to every spark of life I encounter, and reach out a hand of fellowship and love. Exactly what a loving Creator would want.
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| The Golden Rule across religions |
Mad Hops 4 Humanity was born out of the crazy notion that an under 6-foot guy could dunk a basketball on his 44th birthday to raise 44k for refugees.
If you're a little crazy about the current refugee crisis, take a moment to contribute. Funding benefits the Seattle office of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) for use in purchasing and maintaining a passenger van to provide critical transportation services for refugees resettling in the US.
The IRC is a 501c(3)organization and contributions in the US are tax deductible
