Americans

Decided to go out Friday night. Blow off a little steam. After a long week at work. Visit friends and forget about it. Never figuring that before I ever walked in I would have an experience that changed the way I look at a topic I hadn’t really thought about.

As I am walking to the door a gentleman walks up and asks if I have a cigarette he can buy. Not out of the ordinary it’s the conversation that followed that forced me to think. As we stand and talk it becomes obvious very quickly that he has had a bit more than he needed to drink lol. Then he tells me “I am middle eastern and I am proud of it”. Now to my knowledge I had done nothing to make him feel confronted about his heritage his lineage or his religion. We were at the same place for the very same reason. He then goes on to tell me that I shouldn’t judge all middle easterners for the actions of a few or all Muslims for the actions of the terrorists.

This got me thinking hard. This guy is judging me by the actions of others “like me”. He is upset about the possibility of being judged while he is judging. This made me think of us as a whole. Not trying to judge lol but I think we all judge to a degree. Not to determine someone’s worth, their righteousness but to determine other things about them in the grand scheme of things. This Muslim gentleman looked at me a white Christian male 5’9” 275 tattoos all over with a beard and assumed that I would be racist against him. When honestly I looked at him a Muslim Arab just like a man. No different than me other than in appearance. This doesn’t make me any better than him or anyone else but it makes me feel for him. What has he been trained to see to think to believe. Makes me thankful that I have the Bible as the instruction book for this life where we learn we are all of one race and that’s the human race.

By the end of the conversation and him stumbling over his words and me assuring him repeatedly that I wasn’t judging him I felt better. His friends who were also Muslim had walked off when he started talking to me and after ten minutes they were calling and checking on him I guess they judged as well. Talal and I had a good conversation and we got to a good place he was no longer judging me and was comfortable that I wasn’t judging him. He kept saying we are above all Americans and I agreed we are all Americans, but we are more than that. We are people. I told Talal that whether he was an American or if he was only Jordanian that he would get the same respect and love. Because we were called to love people not just Americans.

How much do we judge others? Do we judge people on their skin color? Are we past that? Ok now do we judge people on the ink they choose to put in their skin? Do the tattoos, piercings, outrageous hair cuts and color, the way they choose to live their lives, their sexual orientation, or their addiction make them non human? So why do we not love them. We were called to love people, not just the ones who fit into your group or your ideal. This question is one that we all need to think long and hard about. If not for Jesus dying on the cross would you be lovable, would you be able to love, who on this Earth fits Perfectly into God’s mold into his image? God knows I don’t and I know it too. So I’ll just keep loving people no matter the situation and I’ll try harder to be better every single day.