A Better World

Since I learned to read, I have noticed that there is an abundance of knowledge in this world whose depths I have hardly even begun to fathom. When I go to the library, I find myself feeling like a child in a toy store with a blank check. I just want to get everything and read it right now. I usually spend an hour at one shelf, picking out a few books to read during the week. I have only scratched the surface of the vast storehouse of the library which is available to me. In my search for good books and knowledge, I often come across things that do not come from my own country, culture or religious background. When that happens, I never say to myself, “Oh dear, I can't read that! It was written by someone who is different from me!” In fact, most of the time, the opposite is true and I find myself wanting to read only those things that come from people who are vastly different from myself.

I grew up in a little town in the mid-western United States. My people were white protestants for at least ten generations back. I ate meat and potatoes, raw milk and homemade bread. I learned to say the Pledge of Allegiance when I was six and I can sing all the words to the Star Spangled Banner. When I was small, my mother joined another church and became an outcast in her own family. We never talked about our religion because no one ever asked us about it. Once when I was tending children for a family, they tactfully put some literature on the table which described in detail all of the supposed evils of my family's faith. Not a word was said, but much was implied.

Prejudice usually comes in two forms. Sometimes it has to do with people. We might find ourselves feeling afraid or anxious around someone who looks different from the people we are used to. Other times it concerns people's ideas. I overheard someone say once, that they would never adopt a certain exercise because it originated from a 'different' culture from her own, and she was afraid it might somehow taint her. Now, certainly people are entitled to feel and act as they choose concerning anyone or any idea. We each have our lives to live and I would not have it any other way. But the reason I brought this whole thing up is that if I were to eliminate from my life all the things I have learned and gained from people and ideas that are different from my own, things I could easily have been prejudiced against, I would have missed the best part of my life!

In fact, I would go so far as to say that I believe that my life is worth living today because of what I have learned from 'other' people and 'other' ideas. Wisdom knows no cultural boundaries. There are many wise people who live in the strangest places and have the strangest looks. But, perhaps it's justice at work after all. Those who are foolish enough to reject a man because of where he was raised, what he looks like or who is folks are, just might deserve the results of their ignorance because of their prejudice. Those who overcome prejudice enough to learn from whatever knowledge or people come their way, no matter their appearance or background, certainly deserve the better life they will gain by doing so.

Knowledge IS power; the power to be happy. And I believe that the knowledge we need in order to be completely happy has been planted in the most obscure places, on purpose, to test whether or not we merit receiving it. There are certain bits of knowledge so precious that though it came to me by means of a filthy, inebriated vagrant I would still embrace it. Whether it comes in that or in some other way should not matter in the least. We should never allow prejudice to blind us to the truth, wherever it may be found, however strange it may seem to us coming by the mouth of someone different from ourselves. And who knows but what we might be able to teach someone else a truth that we have discovered and through this sharing, build a better world. Anyway, it's worth a try.