Equality is a spiritual discipline

Some people say that it is easy to treat people equally. That is something that comes naturally. At the risk of offending many of my readers, I disagree. Removing prejudice from your life is a spiritual discipline.

What initially made me think about this was doing games with 5th graders today. I thought they would be difficult. I am used to working with Middle Schoolers and High School youth, but generally have less to do with elementary school rugrats. Today I helped out at our denominational camp doing teambuilding games. Slowly they won me over. But, that was in part because I had to discipline my prejudice in working with younger children.

The same is true with whatever people you consider different than you. I remember living in inner-city KC. There were Laotian, low-income whites, Hispanics, and African-Americans in the neighborhood center where I was living and working. At first, the language issue bothered me. The old Latino ladies would start speaking in Spanish when they didn't want other people to know what was going on. As did the Polish seniors we would pick up as well. After a while though, I grew to appreciate that I got to hear 4-5 languages a day in my neighborhood and at my work. But it wasn't easy. I had to tease the seniors by telling them I thought they were telling secrets about me. (Then they told me to come sit next to them in their "rumble seat" so they could show me they love me.)

In order to keep the discipline of equality, you have to take the time to learn where someone is coming from. Some of the social patterns of the Alaska Natives I lived with (in their village) for a summer seem rude to mainstream Americans, but in their culture their unwillingness to look you in the eye, and their dead fish handshake was a way of saying, "I don't want to overpower you. I want to honor you and not try and move into your space." An important thing in climates that get well below zero for months.

You also have to learn to not generalize from several particulars. For instance, I have often found it difficult in my life to deal with Eastern Europeans. I feel constantly bullied by Eastern Europeans I encountered, especially when I was spending my summers working in the tourist industry in Alaska. I bitterly mumbled under my breathe about them when they would drive into the RV park I was working at. Then in seminary, I got to know some Eastern Europeans on a deeper level, and although many of the same cultural distinctives were there, I got to know them as people instead of as customers at the place I worked at. And I discovered that they were more ignorant of our customs than pushy. It is really easy to say all black folks are like....and all white folks are like....and then label them. And as Soren Kierkegaard says, "When you label me, you negate me".

I think it is important when you are around anyone that is different than you to ask, what can this person teach me about myself? How is God helping me grow through knowing this person?

Anyway...I dont have this all thought out yet, but I do believe that not being prejudiced against others is a discipline. Our nature is to catorgorize and generalize people. God calls us to something more. But it takes work.