Outsiderness and what it can bring
It is not uncommon for skinny nerdy timid boys (speaking of myself in the middle school to early high school days) to identify as outsiders. A variety of factors can lead one to outsider feelings ... or left-out-feelings. One finds these things are somewhat universal when one finally finds a way to talk to others ... but sometimes that skill is hard learned.
And one can go on identifying in isolation or one's own outsiderness. In college, I started over, grew long hair, hung out with the cool kids who liked punk music (hardcore at the time) and even had my first girlfriend. Nonetheless, I felt alien among the particular kind of Christian liberal arts college I went to. Alien may not be right, it always felt like God didn't grant me the same number of limbs as my fellow students, or even that I was missing one or two of the five senses. Worse, because it was God who purposely withheld it from me.
Practically it meant that even though I was finally successful in friendships, I still felt outside. This outsider feeling kept happening (and keeps happening) to me. It has been painful, but like anything substantial has also felt meaningful. Or I have sought to make meaning from it.
One of the meanings I made of my left-outness is connecting with other outsiders. I love the passage from the Soul of Black Folk where WEB Dubois says:
As far back as high school English I remember finding new friends in Faulkner and Ibsen. Then in college I met Chaim Potok and Walker Percy and then James Baldwin. Lately I have found myself in early mornings thinking: "I sit with DuBois and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Hughes and Ellison ... I summon Coates and Wilkerson, King and Kendi, Dove and Clifton ... Still all these wonderful people they live and lived their lives and I must live mine. It is they who inspire, it is they who reveal more and more of this world, especially this world of human beings, but it is I who must put down the book and be myself, however much changed by their gifts.
I recently learned one definition of "non-dual" is that reality is such that you can only approach it through paradox. Are you body or soul? Body or mind? Did you arrive where you are through your own individual effort or is it a product a long line of societal and family effort (both good and bad)? Is life about personal responsibility or graciously accepting the gifts of others?
I love all these writers, but I also have to write. I admire their thoughtfulness and often their life work, yet I have to continue on with my life work. And their work is connected to my work. We are all at work in the fabric of this world of the United States.
Imagine my soul as a garden with so many exotic flowers that I can no longer find the cat-tails that used to grow around the man-made pond of my Ohio home. The little blue cornflowers that grew on the side of the road when we drove into Hendersonville to visit my grandma and granddaddy are still there, but I no longer know what to make of them. Most curious, what do I do with the multi-colored pansies you find in pots at the front doors of 38% of suburban homes in GA? However, the truth is stranger because DuBois knows the cornflower and the cat-tail and so does Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King, Jr. The paradox, knowing them is knowing myself and knowing myself is knowing them.
But sometimes we don't read deeply and we don't welcome a variety of perspectives. This, I am afraid, is happening more than ever. In this pandemic, some of the people who shout for their individual rights and individual freedoms are putting up mass-printed signs in their yards "All jobs are essential" -- which strikes me as a sad re-run of "All lives matter" which was another stolen slogan. In the name of individualism and i-do-what-i-want-ness they cut and paste other people's thoughts. Of course, they have the freedom to do so, but it makes their claim to free thinking a little tinny and hollow.
What about reaching to outsiders? Maybe this can break us out of group think and the jargon-y borders we make. You can do that through people in your community, in your churches, old high school friends or you can do it through books (even podcasts and movies). If you want to understand your Ohio cat-tails and your Tennessee cornflowers, even your suburban pansies you are going to have to DuBois and Hughes and King along with Jefferson and Lincoln. The paradox is this: A) in knowing your own roots, your own individual mind your heart B) you will also know us, the big us, not just U.S. but the Americas and Europe and Africa and India on and on US. And the reverse also.
And one can go on identifying in isolation or one's own outsiderness. In college, I started over, grew long hair, hung out with the cool kids who liked punk music (hardcore at the time) and even had my first girlfriend. Nonetheless, I felt alien among the particular kind of Christian liberal arts college I went to. Alien may not be right, it always felt like God didn't grant me the same number of limbs as my fellow students, or even that I was missing one or two of the five senses. Worse, because it was God who purposely withheld it from me.
Practically it meant that even though I was finally successful in friendships, I still felt outside. This outsider feeling kept happening (and keeps happening) to me. It has been painful, but like anything substantial has also felt meaningful. Or I have sought to make meaning from it.
One of the meanings I made of my left-outness is connecting with other outsiders. I love the passage from the Soul of Black Folk where WEB Dubois says:
I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls ... I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension ..." 1903.
As far back as high school English I remember finding new friends in Faulkner and Ibsen. Then in college I met Chaim Potok and Walker Percy and then James Baldwin. Lately I have found myself in early mornings thinking: "I sit with DuBois and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Hughes and Ellison ... I summon Coates and Wilkerson, King and Kendi, Dove and Clifton ... Still all these wonderful people they live and lived their lives and I must live mine. It is they who inspire, it is they who reveal more and more of this world, especially this world of human beings, but it is I who must put down the book and be myself, however much changed by their gifts.I recently learned one definition of "non-dual" is that reality is such that you can only approach it through paradox. Are you body or soul? Body or mind? Did you arrive where you are through your own individual effort or is it a product a long line of societal and family effort (both good and bad)? Is life about personal responsibility or graciously accepting the gifts of others?
I love all these writers, but I also have to write. I admire their thoughtfulness and often their life work, yet I have to continue on with my life work. And their work is connected to my work. We are all at work in the fabric of this world of the United States.
Imagine my soul as a garden with so many exotic flowers that I can no longer find the cat-tails that used to grow around the man-made pond of my Ohio home. The little blue cornflowers that grew on the side of the road when we drove into Hendersonville to visit my grandma and granddaddy are still there, but I no longer know what to make of them. Most curious, what do I do with the multi-colored pansies you find in pots at the front doors of 38% of suburban homes in GA? However, the truth is stranger because DuBois knows the cornflower and the cat-tail and so does Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King, Jr. The paradox, knowing them is knowing myself and knowing myself is knowing them.
But sometimes we don't read deeply and we don't welcome a variety of perspectives. This, I am afraid, is happening more than ever. In this pandemic, some of the people who shout for their individual rights and individual freedoms are putting up mass-printed signs in their yards "All jobs are essential" -- which strikes me as a sad re-run of "All lives matter" which was another stolen slogan. In the name of individualism and i-do-what-i-want-ness they cut and paste other people's thoughts. Of course, they have the freedom to do so, but it makes their claim to free thinking a little tinny and hollow.
What about reaching to outsiders? Maybe this can break us out of group think and the jargon-y borders we make. You can do that through people in your community, in your churches, old high school friends or you can do it through books (even podcasts and movies). If you want to understand your Ohio cat-tails and your Tennessee cornflowers, even your suburban pansies you are going to have to DuBois and Hughes and King along with Jefferson and Lincoln. The paradox is this: A) in knowing your own roots, your own individual mind your heart B) you will also know us, the big us, not just U.S. but the Americas and Europe and Africa and India on and on US. And the reverse also.
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