This evening I watched a video that really touched me. The great Sidney Poitier, during an interview with Leslie Stahl in 2013, talked about the man who taught him to read (starts at about 4:30 in the video). Poitier was a young adult who wanted to act but couldn’t really read. He’d just had a disastrous audition with a theatre company when a Jewish man, who worked with Poitier where he was a dishwasher, offered to spend time every night after work teaching him the reading skills he needed. The rest is history. After several weeks of this one-on-one unpaid, unsolicited tutoring Poitier was able to reach for and achieve his dreams.
What an inspiring story! How often do we find ourselves in situations with people who seem different from ourselves whom we could help? Or who could provide us the help we need?
Many years ago I met a woman who seemed completely different from myself. She was brash and loud and math/science oriented. She was a very accomplished athlete. She was intellectually brilliant. I wanted nothing to do with her. As I got to know her, however, she taught me about love – love for people who were different. She cared for a woman with severe epilepsy whose anxiety-ridden personality drove everyone else away. She watched out for the young man who was shunned by everyone else in our church community. She was friends with those who were difficult to love. She took me under her wing and taught me how to serve and how to love. We were different, but she changed my life for the better.
I had another friend whom I dated for several years. We had different backgrounds in most ways, but he taught me the skills of a historian and how to look beyond the easy narrative (yes, he is the one who helped convince me that Richard III didn’t kill the princes in the tower). He became a good and valuable friend and I learned much from him that has changed my life.
Another friend – an intellectual of another ethnic and life background – taught me to never just take the easy road of believing things on their surface, but instead to always research on my own to find the truth. What a gift that has been.
One of my LGBTQ friends in high school taught me to value myself just as I was – a gift of great worth to a teenage girl.
Another man I dated years ago was the complete political opposite of myself (and I was extremely political in those days), and we had even worked in opposing presidential campaigns. He taught me to find value and merit in an opposing political view, even if I didn’t agree with that view.
Quite often I discover that people who seem the least likely to impact my life have the greatest impact of all.
Sometimes, however, I think that we allow our differences to keep us from reaching out to learn from or to help others.
Years ago I worked at a public relations company run by Joe and Annele. They were a married couple who struggled to get along. On their honeymoon, so they frequently told us, they stopped at a handwriting analysis booth at a fair and, after giving a sample of their writing to the analyst, they were told to avoid marrying each other because they were too different. I observed their differences on seemingly every single thing, and each difference just drove them further apart instead of helping them learn from each other. They would even argue about what to do with the bars of soap in their shower: Joe felt you should throw out the bars when they became a sliver and Annele felt you should attach them to the new bar. They argued vociferously about this. Instead of learning from and helping each other grow and develop, they prided themselves on digging in on their differences. It was sad to watch.
It seems to me that we too often allow ourselves to be stuck in proverbial life ruts by not looking to those who are different from ourselves and including them within our circle of influence.
An African proverb (of inexact origin) states that “it takes a village to raise a child.” I’d argue that it takes a village for people of all ages to succeed in life. And the wonderful thing about a vibrant village is that it isn’t monolithic. A real village has people from all walks of life, various cultures, unique skills and interests, and different life stories. Within a village, all can affect every other citizen. Each strength, each talent, each skill, and each background is part of a rich tapestry that when woven together strengthens all who are within the village boundaries.
I know that I am richly blessed when I go outside of my normal and seemingly natural circle. My list of people who have been willing to look beyond differences to help me is lengthy. I’m so grateful for them. I am a different and a better person for having a wide and diverse network of influences.
Can you imagine what a loss it would have been had Sidney Poitier never learned to read and never starred on the big screen? What if that Jewish man hadn’t reached out to a young African American man to teach him? What if he’d allow his cultural and racial differences stop him from an act of service? What if Poitier had taken offense by a white man reaching out to teach him? What if?
There is so much we can learn and so much we can give, if we will just look outside the narrow bounds we often live in. What an amazing world we live in!
Look to God and Live... Joyfully! 