My world and your world are just tiny pieces of a much larger world.
I've come to accept that I know a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds. I know and have learned from people from many states and countries and many walks of life.
I know tractor drivers and airplane pilots, doctors and the chronically ill, preachers and convicts, as well as preaching convicts and convicted preachers. I know Mayflower descendants, descendants of people who were here before Columbus, and people who crossed so many borders illegally it's a wasted effort to try and count them. I know street cops and their politician bosses and at least one person who made the FBI's Ten Most wanted list. I know people I won't turn my back on and others I would trust with anything I can imagine.
I know Klansmen and civil rights heroes, demagogues who incite them both and the academics who study all three.
I know shopkeepers and shoplifters. I know people whose names have been on the biggest marquees in the world and others who will probably never be known outside their hometown and family.
I've met a few truly evil people and a couple of folks I believe to truly be saints. I've met pharisees and the widow who gave her last mite.
They all have a few things in common. Every one of them has at least one story inside them and will tell it if you listen.
At one point every one of them was a stranger to me. Another thing they have in common? I've learned something from every one of them.
Go outside your own world. Talk with people who look and seem to think differently from you. Emphasize talk WITH, not lecture TO.
Listen. Try to understand their story.
The world is bigger than you think. Learn from it.
