Circles

 If you have wandered away from Facebook into that mysterious new world called Google+, you know that on that social network, instead of sending and accepting Friend requests as on Facebook, you add people to your Circles.  The people whom you add can add you to one of their Circles, or not, as they choose.  There are various pre-established Circles, such as Friends, Acquaintances, and Family.  Users can create and name whatever Circles suit their purposes.

Left-handed?  Who knows.....

So if you know a lot of people who are Left-Handed Cross-Dressers, you can create a Circle to group those people together. People being added to circles don't have to approve of your adding them (unlike accepting a Friend request on Facebook), and they are in fact unaware of what Circle you put them in.  Some of the Cross-Dressers you know might not be left-handed at all, they might be right-handed, or even ambidextrous, but you are making the Circles, so they don't get a chance to correct your mistaken ideas about them.    

Human interaction, both on the internet and in the real world, is so often about categorizing other people.   I suppose the most basic categories we all establish are Like Me/Not Like Me.  (Or maybe Acceptable/Unexceptable.) We all make judgments about other people based on all kinds of things, some of which are not very fair or accurate.  How often have you made a mental judgement about someone you just met based on how they look or what they are wearing?  If you are like me, it has been pretty often.  We do this without even thinking about it, sometimes without even realizing that we are doing it.  "Look at that person.  He/she is so (fill in the blank).   He/she is probably one of those people who (fill in the blank).  He/she (is, is not) someone like me.  Therefore, he/she (is/is not) acceptable." 

I learned a big lesson about myself a couple of years ago, when my wife and I were on an outing with our daughter Rachel and her son Ian, at an art museum in Oklahoma City, I think.  Ian was about 2 years old at the time, and we encountered a young woman in the museum who had a child about that same age.  I am ashamed to say that the young woman immediately fell into my "Not Like Me" category because she was extremely tattooed and pierced, much like the young man in the photo above, except that she was wearing a shirt.

I confess that it would never have occurred to me to speak to her, because her outward appearance said all kinds of negative things to me, based on my assumptions about people who adorn themselves that way.  So I was surprised when my daughter spoke to her, asking her her child's age, and generally engaging her in the kind of conversation young mothers often share about their children.  I was further surprised when the young woman seemed pretty much like Rachel in her demeanor, her love for her child, and the way she spoke.  It was clear to me that despite the way she looked, the young woman had more in common with Rachel than I would ever have imagined.  In fact, she seemed like a sweet person.  The fear and loathing her appearance has inspired in me disappeared.

 "Just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn't mean it does not exist. " -- Margaret Cho 

People my age remember very well the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and how African-American people struggled to gain rights and privileges afforded to other races in this country.  As children, we were taught that racial discrimination is wrong and destructive to those who are victims of it.  It is now unthinkable to me that I would despise someone based on that person's race.  If I ever find myself making assumptions about someone based on that person's race or ethnicity, I become aware of it and admonish myself to adjust my thinking.   In general, racial bigotry is now considered socially unacceptable, at least among the people I know.  However, unfortunately, other kinds of bigotry, categorizing of people, and "circle drawing" are still second-nature for lots of people today, engaged in  without their even noticing they are doing it.

The kind of thing I am talking about is based on people putting others into their "Unacceptable" category based on what those other people believe.   In our politically fractured society, it is common for politicians and everyday people to demonize those "on the other side of the aisle" because of their belief system.  This kind of thinking about "Outsiders" is also common among religious communities as well.  I was reminded of this yesterday when I read an interview with Jim Palmer, author of Divine Nobodies, Wide Open Spaces, and the upcoming Being Jesus in Nashville.  In his books, Jim writes about being a follower of Jesus outside traditional Christian institutions.   In  this interview, Jim talks about the his controversial upcoming book, in which he describes his experiment of attempting to be Jesus to the people he encounters.  The interview also discusses the fact that the content of that book  caused him to lose his contract with a major Christian book publisher, who deemed it too unorthodox.  

Jim also discusses his observations about how often people in religious communities indulge in the practice of excluding and demonizing other people:  "The hallmark of Christianity seems to have become who is excluded, which can include anything from a theological litmus test to what you wear to church on Sunday mornings. Since leaving institutional church and writing about my journey of shedding religion to find God, I have received hundreds of emails from other nobodies who feel judged and marginalized by Christianity, including Wanda the Waffle House waitress who’s only crime is having tattoos and wearing her Waffle House uniform to church, where people stare at her like she’s a whore and avoid talking to her after the service. "

How often do we exclude others, make them feel judged and marginalized, based on what they believe or how they look?  This happens in all areas of our society, not just churches.  Why do we do this?  What is it about people that makes us need to draw circles that include some, but exclude others?  I have thought a lot about those questions, and I have reached some conclusions about them.

First, it is natural, and not always destructive to make judgements about people and to categorize them.  On Google+, the purpose of the grouping people into Circles is to create sub-communities of people with something in common, so that that grouping can better enjoy their cyber-socializing.  In the real world, we do similar kinds of things through clubs and other kinds of organizations. Also, some of the judgments we make about people are useful, while others are not.   In the case of the young tattooed woman at the museum, it would have been logical for me to assume, based on her appearance, that she liked unconventional (to me) modes of self-adornment.  However, I made the mistake of assuming lots of things about her that may not have been true, and some that were definitely not true based on my daughter's conversation with her.  In short, I dehumanized her.  I made her one of them rather than the individual that she is.  I rejected her without knowing her.  As with the my imaginary Google+  Circle for Left-Handed Cross-Dressers, I did the categorizing, I made the decisions about her without her input, indeed without her knowledge.   

I believe that we often dismiss people, both within ourselves and through our actions towards them, in ways that diminish both them and ourselves.  I believe that this is contrary to what was taught by Jesus, who told us to love God first and to love others as we love ourselves.  I also believe that,  through this kind of thinking, we often cheat ourselves out of knowing someone different from ourselves, and from enriching our own experience by what we might learn from them.  I am proud that my daughter spoke to that young woman at the museum, and I am glad that I was there when she did. 

For me, Rachel was drawing the circle a bit bigger.  I hope to do the same. 

"He drew a circle that shut me out—

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. 

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!"

--Edwin Markham