Bible. it seemed in every way,
we were oddities
in our setting.
the sun brought us as close to dark skin as we could
get. we spent hours on saturdays baking on waikiki
shore lines, hoping to blend in with the others.
today, jan and i are still sun lovers. we still feel
more secure with a tan. feelings one learns in
childhood are so hard to unlearn.
i find myself still working at keeping my back very
straight. as a child, i almost wished to be stooped
rather than peer over everyone.
anything to keep me from being too
noticed in what i thought was a negative way.
one kid who attended high school with my sister
and me was also caucasian, and Christian.
he was struggling for acceptance, too. he
struggled so hard that he ignored us. i think i
understand.
if he could remove himself from the minority
he was a part of, then maybe the majority would
naturally scoop him in as one of them. it left us
more alone, more insecure about our personhood,
more rejecting of it.
my sister recalls my mother or father coming to
pick us up after school.
she’d always go stand close to a group of kids so
my parents wouldn’t know she had no friends. we
knew that the prejudice existed.
our minority position stared hard at us. but we
hoped others weren’t so aware. there’s some
comfort in not being pitied or openly rejected.
we feel prejudice about a lot of things,
but it’s subtle.
that’s the way most prejudice is.
we don’t scream about it. it shows through in
mean, undercutting ways.
there are lots of prejudices, and they always create
pain and hurt.
often they are created for funny reasons, silly
reasons.
they make church groups distant and cold and
unable to relate
as caring circles.
love heals prejudice
because love accepts people where they are.
how they look, how they act, what their
potential is, or isn’t. it makes no demands,
no stipulations. it constantly reaches out
and says, “you may be at one pole and i
at another… but can we be friends
and learn from each other?”
a close friend of mine is a journalist who claims to
be agnostic. we met when she interviewed me for
a newspaper feature. she’s pretty, vibrant, brilliant
in her world.
she has a lovely family i’m fond of.
after we’ve been out together, and i start to leave,
i always say,
“vera, i really love you…”
and vera always responds, “i love you, too…”
i laugh and hug her and think how wonderful it
is that even taking the most sacred thing in my
life and seeing it as pure skepticism in another
doesn’t have to build a wall. God’s love streaks
through the barriers. of course,
i wish vera believed in Jesus Christ. but we love
each other in spite of our differences.
prejudice never lived in our relationship…
not even in the beginning.
when i was twelve, we took a tiny hawaiian baby to
live with us. she was a gift from her family who
already had eleven.
they considered it an honor to entrust us
with their twelfth. if ever a baby had love and
attention to grow in, lani did.
we were white, but somehow we were able to bring
into our family circle the brown skin and black
eyes that we so loved.
God planned people.
all of us.
under the skin or the type of dress or the difference
of language or drawl…
under the facade of house and neighborhood and
“what does your father do?”… similar hurts and
feelings exist.
at different times, everybody cries and laughs
and fails and feels embarrassed and insecure
and needs warmth and someone to call a
friend.
so when all the outside layers are peeled, prejudice
