Hello world,
Well, it's all coming to a close. I realize my writing here has been sporadic at best, but it hasn't been for lack of inspiration. No, I've been busy trying to make the most of my last month here in Philadelphia -- an ambition impeded by an ever-growing workload. But now even the work is winding down, so I figured I'd take some time to reflect.
Philadelphia, to me, is the noise. It's the traffic. It's the dirt and grime and sirens near and far. It's the smells. It's the music. It's the sights and the sightseeing. It's the poverty. It's the wealth. It's the crime. It's the news. It's the food. It's the snow. It's the heat. It's the shopping malls. It's the street vendors. It's the subway. It's the skyscrapers. It's the vacant lots. It's the service. It's the living. It's the learning. It's all of these things and more. But mostly, it's the stories.
So I'd like to share a few little lessons I've learned the past few months. They're important to me, so I hope you can gain something too. I'll share them over the next couple weeks, but tonight I want to focus on one that is foundational to all others, and certainly I hope to my entire life.
Lesson One: Ask Why
Anyone who has ever played a video game will probably be familiar with the EA Games slogan. It goes like this:
Multitude of voices droning in eerie unison: "EA Games"
Lone child's voice in a creepier whisper: "Challenge Everything"
Creepiness aside, I think the folks at EA Games are sending a powerful message. Though I would rephrase to: Ask Why. That's it. Plain and simple, but oh so complex and oh so difficult. It's a simple premise with life-changing application, but ... it's going to take a lot of work.
There is always a reason. There is always another story to explain another action, thought, or idea. So let's look for it. Why is there racism in the world? Why is there poverty hand-in-hand with wealth? Why do some people live abundantly? Why do some people live in constant suffering? Why can't people get along in politics?
These are tough questions, but there is always an answer. For some questions, God alone may hold the answers, but that is no reason not to ask. It's no reason not to look further for the truth and to see, as I've said before, the world through God's eyes. And that's what I feel we sometimes forget -- there is always more to see and learn, even with things we see as inexplicable. The issue of prejudice, for example, is so fascinating to me. I might look at someone who is racist with nothing but disbelief and disdain, but why are they that way?
Perhaps they were born in a homogeneous rural town in a community very antagonistic to those of other colors. The prejudice rubs off on impressionable young minds. And perhaps the townspeople themselves grew up in a similar environment, and their ancestors were slaveholders who would have hated slavery but depended on it completely for their survival in a competitive world and so demeaned their black workers and beat them into submission lest they ever think to rebel and overcome the system. These ancestors may have tried desperately to justify slaveholding, even using the Bible to hold their economic system intact. But the more they read the Bible to convince themselves, the more they felt uneasy. So they painted blacks as the enemy, a people to fear and revile and oppress, and taught such things to their children, whose children's children's children are with us today.
In case you got lost there, the point is that no sane person could ever choose to despise another race unless they were taught it was the right way. What if I was born then, not in a Canadian metropolis of the 21st Century but a southern American town in the 19th Century. Would I be any different?
And what about political divides? In my modest observations and highly caricatured interpretations, Liberals see Conservatives as tradition-bound buffoons with closed minds and obtuse noggins. Conservatives see Liberals as obstinate progressives who would see the very fabric of democracy unravel for the sake of "pleasing everybody." But what if John Stewart and Rush Limbaugh played golf and shared stories of growing up? What if Ann Coulter and Arianna Huffington (of the Huffington Post) went out for coffee and chatted about their childhoods and families. Could they ever see eye-to-eye? Maybe they would, if they only asked why.
No one is born a Democrat or a Republican, we choose a platform based on the world we know. No one is forced to become wealthy or to give all their money away. We do things based on what we know. So what is the solution to all this misunderstanding, and even more so to problems of disparity and economic oppression? To me, it is to learn more. It is to live. It is to see the world beyond your own eyes, to experience the world beyond yourself. And you don't have to travel the world to do this, you just have to ask why.
