2008 Woodie Awards
The Last Straw
Misplacing value
Issue date: 3/1/06 Section: Opinion
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News Editor
I never was one of those kids who collected baseball cards. No, instead my passion for collecting lay with Micro Machines. My older brother, on the other hand, was on the verge of obsession with baseball cards. Growing up we would ride our bikes down to Pearson's drug and he would open a new pack of cards, flip through each one to see who he got and rush home to add them to his containers full of other similar pieces of paper with sports heroes strutting athletic poses. I just wanted the free piece of gum. I saw no value in baseball cards. Some of us see too much value in each other or simply none at all.
I'll be honest when I say I was a loser in high school. My first car was a 1982 Chevy Impala, which in and of itself, did nothing for my "cool" points. I was the butt of every joke when it came to bashing Christianity and my home pastor, Dr. Jerry Falwell. For a kid in a public school, Christianity was the last thing you wanted to wear on your sleeve. Does that sound familiar today on this campus? I sadly admit most of my high school life I spent keeping my Christianity on a high shelf inside the cupboard of my heart. I felt like the biggest loser ever. That is until a new student came walking the halls.
His name was Camden and he was severely blind but could tell who people were. His only means of travel in school was by the use of a walking stick so he could feel his way around. Before anyone could breathe, Camden became the center of ridicule to the immature masses. I was right there in the thick of it, laughing along to the sounds of cruel jokes. Camden became my reasoning to go to school. I felt that as long as he wasn't absent, my day would be like April morning sunshine. Never once did it occur to me that Camden was just like me and I had turned into one of those immature kids. I didn't see him as equal, I saw him as a replacement.
Things haven't changed since high school for my generation and the generations who have come and gone. Equality is off the radar in our minds. Why do we feel it is a vital part of living to kill our neighbor with words and actions reflecting anything but whom we should act like? Why, at the sight of anything different, do we feel it is our duty to make the whole world act like us towards those people or things that are different?
I've always hated sports for the sheer fact kids build their lives to be just like their hero on the diamond or the skating rink. Even today we place a high level of value in athletes and movie stars who, believe it or not, chew food just like we do. I laugh whenever I see an issue of Us Weekly with a section on stars being just like us. Jessica Simpson pumps her own gas? Goodness gracious alive let me call Guinness. We've come to a social breaking point in society where we can't see the system of value in each other. We have the mind set that we're not going to give a homeless man spare change, because we're saving to buy a new CD. I'm not going to reach out to those less fortunate and different from myself.
My Jesus didn't associate himself with just the rich or just the needy or the famous people. He was to everyone who we adore today. He was and is a loving and compassionate Father who doesn't play favorites. He sees everyone as equal and a child in His eyes. I'm not trying to play the harp and sit here and preach, but we're all guilty of associating ourselves with others who we deem valuable to our daily routine. Some of us have upgraded our fuel to premium because it's what Jessica uses. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being the object of ridicule and being the source of the offensive jokes. I'm tired of the social value system placing those less fortunate on a similar line with human waste and placing those we admire above Christ. We should all be valuable to each other on one single straight line.