Confused?

I live in a world where multiple cultures, educational models, religious world-views and political ideologies all collide. My wife and I were given tickets to a great play yesterday to a small theater that showed the race and religious issues from the turn of the last century. The actors did an incredible job of living out the unfortunate reality of racism and bigotry. The last scene of the play shows an elderly Jewish lady holding the hand of her aging almost blind former chauffeur.  Today there is still a huge gap between religious groups, ethnic groups and socio-economic groups. I'm reading an e-book that addresses some of the issues of how we can live in a pluralistic society without having to physically force my neighbor to become a clone of me. The hope is to promote dialogue amongst different groups where we can actually have relationships of value and be able to learn from each other and promote community building.

I am fortunate to have many friends that represent the full spectrum of present humanity. I did a community project this last weekend that brought a group of students and a few teachers from the mid-west to help feed the homeless and paint a home of a low-income family. I had a large number of volunteers from my group that were a lot different from our visiting group. It is always amazing to see how long it takes for strangers, who really are different, to warm up to each other and be able to begin a relationship. I was totally surprised, in a pleasant way, when one of my little kids, who is African American, piped up and said that it was horrible to have groups come and help because they always have to leave and saying good-bye is terrible. So it is possible I think for people of very different backgrounds, ages and intellects to connect. The challenge is whether we allow the perceptions of others to cloud our vision so we become confused.

Anne and I had dinner with some good friends who were visiting from the south. They were the ones who gave us the tickets for the play and it was their friend who acted out the role of the chauffeur in the play. What was exciting was to see how the cast in this small production, clearly different backgrounds, races and age representations, had become close friends who enjoyed each other's skills. Yet, what struck me as we had dinner with our friends is how easy it is for us to be aloof to strangers because we are unwilling to give someone a chance or look beyond their exterior. 

As I'm reading this e-book, which is attempting to provide different models for the potential of groups to connect it struck me, how we have made everything so complicated and confusing. Everyone now has labels. Yes, I'm a senior, conservative but yet liberal, I'm a mac guy not a pc guy, I don't get some personal vices of others but have come to the awareness that pot will be legalized soon in most states and that domestic partnerships or GLBT marriages will happen whether I approve or not. So how do I approach a society where change isn't always in my favor? I struggle with the inability of many to get the disparity between the haves and the have nots or those that have been brought to the US illegally when they were young kids, who now can't get a job, a driver's license or go to college.

Is there any hope to see dialogue across such diverse cultural lines? It still comes back to a willingness on my part and yours to listen, learn and choose not to automatically label someone a certain way that puts them outside our box. One of the classic lines of the play is when the chauffeur is on a trip taking the Lady of the House to a far away destination and has to go to the bathroom. It wasn't possible for him to go into a normal gas station and use the restroom. So the chauffeur does his best to get his bosses attention before he loses it and just pulls to the side of the road. She forbids him from doing this but he has no choice but to run before he has an accident. Hopefully there can be real dialogue where we can see the obvious and allow each other an opportunity to communicate our life experiences to see the world become a better place otherwise there will be more and more accidents.