Real

When I was young, maybe about age 8, I always thought the world worked a certain way. I grew up going to church and praying to a God who I thought ‘listened’.

Christian school was where I started.

I learned to read and write and sing ‘Jesus loves me’ in three part harmonics.

 But as I grew older and started seeing the world for myself, my closed off vision of how my life really was, compared to others, began to open up.

I saw how everything was not black and white.

 I learned that some people chose grey, or stood on the side lines cause their ball of life bad been kicked far too the left or far too the right.

 And once you go through a death, or have a friend go through a change where she thinks she’s a boy or have someone disrespect you because of the color of your skin, your own ball of life changes too…

And you soon realise you’re not kicking the ball, you’re about to learn how to swim.

And as I got thrown into the ocean of ‘real life’, that’s when I almost drowned, but that was also when I began to understand what ‘life’ was all about.

You see, when I was only 16 years old, my best friend rejected me because she thought I wouldn’t accept her as a ‘him’.

He thought, since I was a Christian, I couldn’t live with the fact that he couldn’t be ‘re- born’ again.

 And as the months past and him and I didn’t talk, that’s when I got the news the he was in the hospital and it was then that I decided to show him what real friendship and love was all about.

Love isn’t always about sex, kissing, and being a ‘couple’. Real love is being there for someone when the storm starts to thunder.

Love is holding one close during a time of pain or encouraging them when the dark cave is the only thing they can’t seem to change.

And as I walked into his hospital room, his eyes lit up, and his arms opened.

We both started to cry as we realized we could still be friends no matter what life tried to throw us.

So don’t tell me there is no hope for humanity.

We are living in a society where everything is changing ever so rapidly.

We are learning every day to be a people of acceptance, a people of color and to be a mind of excellence together.

 But how can we do this when we are brought up so sheltered, sitting in pews and listening to a pastor?

I can tell you one thing, wasn’t it Jesus who said, “love one another,” and, “Treat everybody as a Brother?”

It shouldn’t matter if you are black, red, yellow, or white. It shouldn’t matter if you are a boy or a girl or identify as gay, bi, straight or some other.

WE are all humans.

WE are all real.

Don’t you think it’s time to step out of ‘your’ world and starting diving into the ocean of experiences and goals?

When I was young, maybe about age 8, I always thought the world worked in a certain way.

But now, 10 years later, I now see a different path, a new view, a real place.

 Once I decided to pull up my blinds and the let the sun shine in, all my dark spaces and narrow mindedness, ran away.

And still today, and for years to come, I am learning that real change, real love, and real acceptance comes from the heart…

Not from presidential speeches, or changes in the law. Not from rallies on the streets or from the violent war guns…

But to see a difference, you have to do what Ghandi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Don’t sit back and wait for somebody else to do it instead.

‘Cause if we always wait for someone to pick up the shovel and start to dig, your idea of change is as good as dead.