spiders and milestones

For several years after college graduation, I worked as a nanny.  I worked for years prior with middle and elementary school aged children, but never with toddlers. Now, if you have never worked with small children, there are some obstacles that you may or may not be aware of. For example, it is imperative to have a bathroom door with either kid-proof locks or no locks at all. It may also behoove you to develop an ability to follow at least three lines of non-sensical conversation at a time just in case one of the things mumbled along the way is "I think I'm gonna throw up."

The obstacle that shocked me the most was the day that the middle child brought me a spider while we were at the park. I am very frightened of spiders. There a lot of things that don't unsettle me - spiders do not fall into that category. I drew in a quick a breath.

"Wha's whong?" asked the 2 year old.

In that split-second, I had to make a decision. I had to decide whether or not I was going to teach him to be afraid of something which I feared. I had this weird out-of-time experience where I realized that 22-23 years ago, I was that 2 year old. I remembered bringing my father daddy-long-legs' dangling between my pinched fingers.

"Nothing," I breathed. "Sometimes I think I don't like spiders but then I remember that there is nothing to be afraid of."

He paused, tilted his head. "Oh. Okay." And off he toddled with the spider.

I remember vividly the moments in my life where, for the first time, I was confronted with the idea that people different than me were supposed to be mean, or scary. I grew up surrounded by people of different ethnicities, religious beliefs, political ideologies, ability levels. Was it perfect? Hell no. I am sure there were plenty of acts of of prejudice and fear happening all around me. I never observed it. And I was aware, to some degree, that elsewhere in this big world existed pain and hate and terrible, divisive lines meant to instill fear.

But those lines simply weren't a part of my world.

It is hard to say definitively which moment came first for me, because every time I think I have hit the first one, another pops up. I remember so vividly the first time I had a friend over who panicked when she saw a black man in my house. It was my mom's boyfriend.  He lived with us. Surely I mentioned him to her, I thought. I knew I had talked about him before. It never occurred to me that I needed to clarify his skin color.

I remember the first time that someone in our family lashed out at him over nothing. Later, I realized that this was because of some unspoken fear they must have perceived because he was different from them. I remember when his niece, who was younger than me was raped. I was alarmed but when I asked my mom if they got the guy - she told me they hadn't even gone to the police. Instead, he took a few days off work to go protect her house and family. It made no sense to me at the time.  It was a decision made out of a fear that I had no way to comprehend.

I remember the first time I heard a Christian friend process the choice to end a friendship because of differences in faith. I was confused, because they got along so well. There were no major conflicts - just a difference in theologies.

The first time all my college friends met some of my best friends from home via Skype and were confused afterwards about why I had not specified my friends from home were a different ethnicity from me. The first time I had a man make derogatory comments about my body. The first time I was scorned for my faith. The first time I was grabbed and groped without permission. The first time I heard someone mock a friend with a disability. The list goes on and on. It goes all the way up to last Christmas when I had my closest friend of 10 years tell me that, although I had been nothing but a great friend to her (her words, not mine) that she could no longer be friends with me because I am white.

Anyone who knows me knows that my memory is, honestly, not that great. I lose my keys, my phone, my shoes, pretty much anything detachable from me, about 50 times a day. I can't remember what I had for dinner two nights ago to save my life. If you asked me what I did for my thirteenth birthday party, I wouldn't have an answer - although it seemed so terribly important at the time.

So, I have been thinking a great deal this week about why these memories stick out to me. It seems strange, doesn't it? Why do I remember these upsetting moments much more clearly than the happy ones?

The conclusion that I have come to for now is that these moments represent moments of learning in my life. With every one of these memories, I learned a little bit about the darkness that tears our world apart. Each of these tiny moments serve almost like my Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. It shows me tiny glimpse of what it would be like to give into the idea the differences are something to be afraid of.

It's not that I was not raised to see color, religion, politics, gender, or ability. I see them very well. I was just raised, thankfully, never to be afraid of the things that were different from me. Curious? Definitely. Cautious? Perhaps. Fearful? No. Hateful? Never.

It saddens me the more and more I realize that my childhood is not a common story.

Fear is such a powerful motivator. It really is. Think about it. I bet that you have a handful or more of pretty stark memories in your life. Can you remember a moment where you were afraid? I can. It knocks the breath out of me. My heart rate goes up. I start to panic.

It is easy to shut things out and focus on yourself and survival when you are afraid. Our bodies are built with a fight-or-flight response. It makes sense that fear paralyzes us.

I guess what I am ultimately saying is this: Of course a lot of people are shutting other people out right now. They have been taught to fear the differences in others. But, fear makes us resistant to change.

There are a lot of things that make this discussion applicable to our political environment right now. There is the #BlackLivesMatter vs. #All/BlueLivesMatter issue. There are class issues out the wazoo. There are issues about letting in Syrian refugees. There debacles over tackling rape culture and the stigma and taboo of mental disorders in our country. There are fights over gun rights and gun control.

But you guys, we are all people. Which means, we all know exactly what fear feels like.

Now, I have yet to uncover a major world religion that teaches that fear is a good thing. I have also yet to uncover a major world religion that teaches that we should prioritize ourselves over others. In almost every religion that I have studied (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hindu - some more than others) we are taught that fear is unproductive. It is not something that we should allow in our hearts because it hardens us.

It is fascinating really. I think if I asked almost anyone I know if the are glad for the civil rights movement in the 1960's they would affirm that they are. We look at historic scenarios - the Holocaust, civil rights movements, even the AIDS epidemic of the 1980's. Generally speaking, these scenarios are painted with good guys and bad guys. Who are the bad guys? Most often, they are the groups of people whose actions are motivated by fear. They are the people who resist change. They hide  behind opinions instead of fact.

It is easy to look back in time and say "Yeah, that was wrong. They should never have done that/said that/treated people like that." Hindsight is 20/20, after all. And it's easy to think about and align ourselves with a side when it is hypothetical.

But what about when we find ourselves face to face with it? What will we do when we have the opportunity to speak out for the oppressed, the terrorized, the maltreated, not in a hypothetical scenario, but in a real life moment?

When I was in high school, I discovered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It spoke volumes to me. I found chords of resonance with his empassioned words directed at a hurting world and those of misguided faith. This, this was a man whose ideas I could get behind.

I was invited to be a part of the #BlackLivesMatter protest at Mall of America last year that garnered national media coverage. I didn't. And that is now one of the memories that sticks in my head.  For the first time, I saw the fear and the darkness that imprints these memories into my mind, not in the actions of another, but in myself. It was awful.

Sure, I can argue the logistics behind it to death. I could say that I don't think it was well-planned or that they shouldn't have protested on private property, or a million different things. But bottom-line, if I really look at my motivations. I was scared.

And I had that luxury.

I had the luxury to be afraid because, if I didn't go, if I didn't say anything, my life would not be any different.

It is easy to say that we want equality for others, that we want life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for all. But when we have a choice to step out of our safe homes, our comfy living rooms, into the scary reality where people aren't treated equal, where they aren't loved, cherished or valued, will we do it?

We risk being stepped on, hurt, scared, losing a lot - but in 20 years, will you be proud of your actions?

It doesn't really matter what divisive issue we are talking about. It doesn't really matter what faith you follow.

Locking ourselves up in fear solves no problems. It certainly doesn't protect anyone or change the future.The next time you find yourself isolated to one side of a humanitarian issue, I would urge you to pause. Just briefly ask yourself: Am I afraid? Am validating my opinions with fear?

If the answer is yes, maybe try stepping outside the box for a little bit. Live with the fear. Even just for a day.