Turning 40: Notes to My Younger Self. #16 People are Beautiful

#16. People are Beautiful

When we were younger, we were rarely exposed to people who were different than us. Growing up in a conservative tradition, which we still very much appreciate, we were primarily surrounded by like minded people.  

Southern, white Americans, who prescribed to the Christian faith and attended churches of Christ, and who were primarily middle class Republicans.

So, with the lack of exposure, there was a lack of comfort and understanding.

When I was in graduate school in the early 2000s, people from school would often invite me to hang out, to go to dinner, to attend parties.

I never went.

I didn’t necessarily understand what it meant to spend time with people who were different. I suppose a part of me was afraid. I did not drink. I did not cuss. I did not know what one did at bars. I knew that I was terribly conservative and that they were not. I knew that I held to traditional ideal and I knew that they did not. So, I stayed at home.

In addition to fear, my legalism and ignorance also gifted me a degree of arrogance, an elite ideology of goodness, and humble superiority. I was not like those people.

I missed a lot of opportunities to meet and fellowship and live life with some really good people because of that fear and ignorance.

Thankfully, I grew.

Working has ascribed me to a life of people very different from my self and my tradition. I have met and worked a long side with people from literally all over the world. I have met and worked a long side people from all walks of life. I have met people more conservative than me, much more liberal than me, Democrats, atheists, agnostics.

What I have learned is that people are beautiful, that I am truly no better than anyone else, that God loves all.

I have friends from all over the world: India, Kenya, Afghanistan, Philippines, Nigeria, China, Cameroon, Korea, Ukraine, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Africa, Russia, Romania, Israel, Vietnam, Thailand, and so many many more places.

I have dear friends who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and heterosexual.

I have dear friends who are Muslim, Orthodox, Catholic, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, Jewish, spiritual, and Christian.

I have met drug addicts, t-totalers, those who only smoke a little weed, alcoholics, and people who simply socially drink.

I am so thankful that life grew from the safe space I grew up in, to the safe space that is now my world.

I am better for these people. All of these people. They have encouraged me to be a better human, a better clinician, a better person, a better Christian.

They have ALL shown me Jesus.