The weather in Ha Noi has been really nice lately.  Walking outside, you get hit with neither heat nor humidity.  It's simply a very consistent 70s only made nicer by the breeze.  Aside from the occasional spurt of overcast and drizzle, it's been really pleasant.  All of that makes the fact it's being in the midst of Passover a bit odd for me. 

Passover has been a part of this time of the year that I regret not doing more to observe.  It's easy to recognize Easter and especially Good Friday, but Passover tends to get, well, passed over.  Not exactly the same observance we could be making, could it? 

This is already a sobering time for me without observing Passover.  Despite the celebratory reality of Easter, I never really shake what needed to first take place in order for Easter to be of any significance.  When I consider Passover even just superficially, I wonder why this holiday isn't also a part of my celebration.  I'm not beholden to any one tradition during this time of the year, so, honestly, why don't I? 

I'm encouraged to see a US President holding a Passover Seder now (I'd like to imagine Bush did the same).  Maybe one day I'll begin holding Passover Seders.  I hope so.  At least, once I grasp this holiday with better reverence. 

Last night I found myself wondering "where was I ten years ago?" and I found myself mistakenly remembering New Year's Eve for 1999 with watching Prince throw an expensive, customized, Warwick Thumb bass across a stage.  As for 1998, I don't recall a whole, whole lot.  That was my junior year in high school, and that was pretty . . . unremarkable. 

Still, though unremarkable, it's strange thinking how that was ten years ago and I remember it all pretty well.  That would be a decade of my life.  In a few years I'll be three decades old.  Ten years ago I hadn't thought a whole lot about having a "resolution" about the next year since I didn't put a whole lot of stock in that sort of thinking.  I actually didn't put a whole lot of stock in the future PERIOD.  With the stock market as it is now, it seems everyone has neither stocks to put things in, nor a more certain future.  Things get shaken up, but we need that in our lives sometimes. 

Now it's the future and circumstances are a teensy bit different than they were in 1998.  Nothing that needs to be repeated, but it awakens my concept of time. 

2009.  Another day, and another page of the calendar. 

How likely are we to do things unspeakable or unfathomable?  I do not mean awesome, but those ways in us that can sometimes be written off as things "other people" do.  When I look at my own life, there's often a bright, shining duplicity (to me) of where my actions put a stamp of approval on what my words condemn.  Sometimes this hypocrisy is conscious, but I think it's very often less conveniently overt. 

We seem to show it in different ways, where a certain condemnable action in another finds it root in something I myself practice. The main difference is that "he's doing that, not I."  It's okay to point out what the other person does so long as it's that thing and I condemn it.  How does the mirror reflect my own life, I wonder? 

No events or conversations have recently taken place to spur this thought on.  It's been a quiet observation for awhile.  I'm surrounded by people.  I see my choices reflected in their lives, and I wonder over how, at the core, their choices are all prompted by largely the same things as mine for good or ill.  What do I do, then?  Do I judge what they do harsher, even though we bleed from the same wound?  Do I deconstruct the situation to circumvent my own negligent heart?  Or, do I forgive as I've been forgiven? 

I'm well-acquainted with the last question, but I likely respond to variations of the first two. 

As it's clear by now, Obama is now the 44th President of the United States of America.  For some that thought produces great jubilation, and for others reservations and even fear.  Who is right and wrong in how they feel is not really my reason for writing—starting January 20th everyone will have four years to see Obama's heart—but how that represents one flood I'm struck by.  I'm surprised to see so many people actually act on their support for Obama, and also admirably for McCain.  Voter turnout for both candidates was huge.  It's already at nearly 100 million voters and there's still a quarter of precincts going unreported. 

However, there is the other flood.  I remember how the initial effects of the flood were almost "cute."  Most people were laughing while negotiating the waters, we had overall positive attitudes, and it was simply just a lot of water.  It wasn't until shortly thereafter the situation began to feel much graver:  you learn of 19 people dying in Ha Noi, around 60 in the whole region, areas stuck under a meter of water (about three feet) even now, homes and businesses threatened, livelihoods lost.  I now feel embarrassed about my initial humor over what has proven so destructive. 

There's not a whole lot of justifiable excitement about the election results once I step out the door and the reality is still there.  I can't shake a story recounted to me by a student.  A 9th grade student was out wading through the flood waters several days ago.  Those who know Ha Noi know how there's a lot of open drainage holes around the city.  This 13-year-old girl was walking and slipped into one of those holes.  They haven't found her body. 

I'm caught between two floods representing very different things, very different emotions.  You may not like Obama, but how would you feel if you are a parent and are told that you are forced to come to terms with the fact with how you'd never see your child again, either living or dead.  I want to have a daughter someday:  how would I feel?  At the end of the day, politics is a very small thing, and all we've got is each other and a needy, hurting community around us. 

For the past couple of days I'd reach a certain point where I just stop doing things.  I'd told myself "I just don't know what to do," but I realize that's not altogether true.  Sometimes you wake up from something akin to a dream, like your mind had been in a fog, and you realize you've been wasting your life on things. 

Maybe it's not on everything--very likely it isn't--but does that really matter?  What are those things that fog our mind to honest choices?  It's the weird premonition for me because I used to consider my days as very full, but lately they've been lacking due to ultimately wasted time.  You commit yourself to something inconsolable and you find your heart distant, distraught. 

I haven't pursued this, but this has probably been what's gnawing at my conscience.  It has nothing to do with this very likely being my last year in Viet Nam.  Could that have leant itself to it?  Possibly, but this is a greater lesson to me than where it came from. 

At times like these, I wonder whether I'm like a driver in a car, sitting stationary while blindly staring at the next bend in the road, never taking myself down the path my eyes are blankly regarding . . . 

What is true dignity?  Do we know it when we see it?  Is it more than a manner of speech or how one carries him/herself?  How do we acquire it?  Can we lose it?  Have we actually lost it? 

I've been thinking about this for awhile now since a friend by the name of Richard described it as a gift one receives from God (if I'm doing what he said any justice).  That would seem to make sense:  dignity as the expression and workings of His heart for those He loves.  Yet this is a word relegated to classical speech, perhaps rightly so, but it has still seemed to lose some of its meaning.  A gentleman can be described as "dignified" in how he walks, but he could really just be pompous and vain.  A woman can have very "dignified" speech, but she could really just think she's better than the rest.  Or vice versa.  Still, what has become of this thing that can be understood as a heavenly endowment? 

What's caused me to consider this recently has to do with where my own showing of dignity to others is absent.  During times when I am around someone who asks for money, what is showing them dignity?  What rightly appraises their true worth and meets their need?  Then I consider how I treat myself and conduct my own life.  Is it a reflection of worth rightly attributed to my life, or is it originating in myself?  While trying to avoid worshipping the idea of dignity outright, I find myself somewhat haunted by it.  Whether such is as it should be I do not know, but perhaps it's better to have it than to not. 

It's probably the choices I've accepted with the greatest of ease that have generated the most problems in my life.  When I think about it, I take less time managing those choices than I do other things.  Call it a form of appeasement, or even call it someone else's fault for bringing it about.  Either way, it's a choice I make regardless of the level of attention I give it. 

Here's an example more related to life here that doesn't stem from me.  People will describe some of the effects of globalization in terms of the influence of western culture, often along negative terms.  Some things mentioned about that has been a growing acceptance of things like cohabitation or other areas of "western" "culture" that run counter to traditional life here.  Whether things like that are necessarily western or cultural is another story in itself (I consider them neither, as such things are not universally accepted through any given culture in "the West"), but they exist as a choice for people here.  Usually it's "the West" that is assigned the blame for what ultimately resides in the choice of those individuals who might accept and do such things.  That's another way of placating responsibility, and not creating an incentive for changing one's own actions. 

Life presents many choices, and any number of things could nudge them in front of us.  For me, it could be something like the results of accepting a life outside of ready contact with people I know, or how my days and nights blend together--reality is no more elusive than the often-subtle choices I make during it.  At that time, maybe I should begin wondering about my own gladness, the source of it, and whether I haven't just traded it for a few paltry, choice acceptances. 

It's now a little less than a month until I be back in the US for the Summer (June 14th for those who don't know).  This time last year, things were a little unusual, such that they required an earlier return to the US than planned.  I'm glad this Summer is different in that sense, but it has its own fair shares of changes are there in place of what was unusual last year (like a gecko chirping in my room just now).  I find it's most evident in how I judge myself, and the things I consider most important to me. 

With those things, the school year is finally at a place where everything has shifted down several gears and has slowed down a lot.  Still, my own life retains that feeling of situations being more of a mixed bag than understandable due to a relaxed pace.  While life slows down, my heart doesn't really follow suit.  It's still anxious, still wrestling with itself.  Looking at what's taking place around me, it shouldn't, but that doesn't alter how persistently I feel it. 

These are moments where I need to wonder about where I'm going in my life.  Surroundings don't make for lasting peace, as much as I enjoy quiet, restful moments.  A restless, discontented heart can easily obscure the slightest semblance of understanding into something of foreign origin.  I don't think life was meant to be viewed that way. 

Do I need a vacation?  YES.  More importantly, do I need a deeply-engrossed sense of understanding towards my life?  Even more so.  The struggle is then to attain such a Peace that looks passed the trappings of a fleeting point-of-view or the attraction of mere knowledge, and accepts life according to providence and inspiration . . .

I need to be there. 

At various times, I've gotten caught up with the idea of my own giving.  That's not an idea discouraged in the world today, as well as some of the circles I find myself around, but it's got the idea all wrong.  Kind of like pigging out on low-fat food:  the practice negates the point. 

When I'm honest, I have nothing to give people, really.  In the past, I used to mute that statement with the reality I receive so much help and support from others anyway that I let the literal sense of giving be all there was:  I give nothing because all I have is literally what others have given me.  The symbolism was reduced to reality.  I've not been discouraged from giving--it's just often been couched in the terms of expectation, where you ought to give, even being considered right to do.  "Sacrifice" gets tossed about a bit then.  Instead of seeing yourself on the receiving end of a gift anymore, it's a form of a gratified expectation.  Not quite the same thing.  I don't dare speak of that as an absolute, but I feel like it's the over-riding theme during any audible mention of the word.   

So, what have I looked for, if I can say that much?  The gift.  Giving very often doesn't come on terms decided by us.  Instead, it takes the form of the one giving.  When conditions are made to appropriate giving, what is given retains form but loses status.  I don't know how often I've given something out of duty, while foolishly interpreted it as gain for the receiver.  Maybe it's out of a sense of control giving is granted its worth nowadays:  giving as an expression of the ability, rather than the gift. 

This has arisen out of my own need to admit a need for giving without pursuing the gift, either of my receiving or mistaking what I should give.  The dilemma there could be "well, what do you give, then?  What's the big deal about giving?  I don't see it."  True, there's a touch of despair there, but that's the point:  that attention doesn't grant one the gift they can soon give.  Giving is utterly un-iconic.  It's not made for the senses.  What you have to give is inchoate, not so easily marked.  The question then should be "then how do I give it?" 

If this is all just high-minded, philosophical, or even overblown, then don't trouble yourself with the answer to that question.  However, if it's not . . .

Later yesterday afternoon I was sitting to the left of one of the many trees that surrounds Ho Guom (alternately known as Hoan Kiem Lake or "Sword Lake"), taking a quiet moment to overlook the non-foul smelling western side of the lake (the northern side of the lake by the bus area was positively rank yesterday).  I had just taken out my English translation of Shusako Endo's Silence when, out of the corner of my right eye, I saw what looked like a young, Vietnamese male figure sit to the right of the tree.  Sort of like the foggy recollection of a dream in the morning, my thought at that moment was something like, "We're about to talk, and I can already guess the content of 95% of our conversation."  Sure enough, I was right. 

As is common at Ho Guom (and Xuan Huong Lake in Da Lat), if you're a foreigner and stationary, someone will either try to sell you something or practice their English with you.  This fellow was the latter.  Knowing what English students' practice needs are like, I played the sport and talked to the young man for about an hour, even though I knew what he was going to ask me before the words left his mouth.  The only unanticipated 5% of our conversation registered in the area of a stereotype towards Americans:  did I own a gun?  Given Charlton Heston just passed away, it seems somewhat of a fitting tribute in retrospect.  I was half-expecting him to follow the question with "have you ever shot anyone?" 

Foreignness.  It definitely ain't a new experience for me, but you re-greet it with people who aren't used to foreigners.  Even though the conversations don't always explore new territory, it's a fact of life when I'm "the white guy."  That sort of foreignness I can anticipate, but it's the hyper-sensitive experience that can greet you among those more like yourself that can be a little more challenging. 

At times, it seems like the expectations of the "foreign life" from other foreigners can be just as stereotyped as how we're perceived first as foreigners.  Rules of conduct, what you're supposed to like, the perceived necessity/place of culture shock--all can seem somehow dictated to you if you're ill-used to living in a different culture.  If more sensitive/vulnerable, you can fall right into that way of thinking and living, to where the topics of your own conversations become 95% predictable, falling somewhere under the headings of culture shock, language study, teaching, "name that sickness," or nostalgia.  The last one probably supercedes and informs them all.  In a way, you then start to become foreign to each other, even though most of what you say sounds informative. 

Granted, that way consists of a lot of small talk, but it's a little rote after awhile if you interpret overseas life as something separate than how an ordinary life can feel.  With that, I begin to desire less towards attributing life here as "something special," barring the reality it's uncommon for the majority of people to live in a country they aren't a citizen.  There are times when designating a particular set of experiences as common to a life does more to confine and limit life than broaden it, like setting up personal walls to prevent one from feeling too much.  It's behind those walls you start hedging in definitions for what you experience, and life and people start to look plain, a little less distinct in their own created worth and image. 

I can't say my life has been 100% free from that, but it's gotten better.  Still, you look around, you are the foreigner, but it doesn't have to feel foreign.  My knowledge of the Vietnamese language will never be anywhere near what I would like (though it does suffice for the time being) and my height will never edge closer to 1.6 meters like the majority of people I meet unless someone saws my shins in half, but I'm consciously here and living life.  Being foreign doesn't require you to feel foreign. 

That's my two cents on that. 

Outside the backdoor of my room on what I can only describe as my "balcony" (I'm at ground level, so it's not really overlooking anything) I have a dying plant.  Now, it hasn't always been that way, as I first acquired it come mid-November for Teachers' Day from one of my students.  At the time, it was lively and had flowers that bordered somewhere on salmon and magenta in color. 

Over time, specifically before I left for graduate school classes in Thailand, the flowers started to wilt, and one-by-one some of the green leaves began to fold-inward, making a color transition from yellow to brown to dropping off entirely, dead.  There are no flowers on the plant anymore, and there are three leaves, two of which have started turning inward. 

I guess it's been over the past month or so since I've been aware of the eventual "fate" of my plant that I've wondered why I've continued watering it.  For all intensive purposes, the plant is "on its way out."  It would seem little better to grab a random stick, shoving it in some dirt, and watering that than to water this plant of mine.  Yet, I continue to water it, and it seems to strive on as when I first acquired it. 

At the same time, I've wondered at different times how often I carry on in the same manner with myself as I do this plant (you knew that parallel was coming, didn't you?).  Seriously, though:  do I try to rescue dying ways in my life, once-healthy ways that ultimately result in parts of me turning inward and wilting away?  People and plants are definitely different (though both are respectably made in their own ways), but, while a plant cannot help but be a plant, people have an uncanny way of betraying any dignity stamped on them since before birth. 

Would it be better if I was just a plant, rather than capable of doing things that result in honoring less the worth inherent in my life? 

Time feels like a companion who changes personality at every new meeting.  That makes time and I unusual guests, given I favor continuity with flavoring added along the way.  Actually, maybe that makes us a little too fitting.  I guess I'm not talking so much about time as I am the One who knows the end from the beginning. 

Still, time is a different companion for me so far this term.  I find myself wanting to try new things in class as a desire to help students, but haven't totally reconciled the cost that has on me as a teacher.  There are angles with such preparation that I need to assume at what feels like a raised standard for me, at least with my make-up classes with my second-year students.  The costs of growth, and not letting the desire for brief feedback be taken as a sign of approval. 

Life is not all school and learning, and there are still those quiet moments present in a day.  Perhaps the stillness of an unexplored morning, or a spell of wonder amid a pause in class.  Outside of class . . . that part of life this semester is still unformed. 

That, and it's mentally wearying to have most of my classes at the start of the week.  At that . . .

On my ride back from the airport Thursday night, I was having a simple conversation with the taxi driver.  I'd been asking about having to work on what was a national holiday with Tet festival and the lunar new year.  He'd described how he still got to spend time with family, but knew that he had to work later in the day because he lived in the countryside region of Noi Bai to the North of Ha Noi. 

Then, the car pulled off to the side of road on the highway, and, for some reason, I got the paranoid thought, "Wait a minute, he's going to rob me on the side of the road!"  I don't really know why, except maybe because I was tired, so a little delirious, or that I was entertaining a passing comment made one night in a tuk tuk in Chiang Mai of the same nature.  Low and behold, the driver, who smelled faintly of liquor, simply was responded to the call of nature, and stood facing rice paddies as he relieved himself in the cover of night. 

There's more than just a basic function of nature that goes alongside returning to the familiar.  While I was ready to return to Ha Noi, there was a part of me with a lingering uncertainty that almost resembled dread.  It didn't have anything to do with people or work, but the you that returns when you do.  I can't say I believe I leave something when I travel, but I hope I bring what I learn back from my time away. 

My times away usually involve realizing something about myself, more particularly either affirmation or rebuke.  This time away affirmed where I'm going for the future, but it's a test to return to what you know.  Maybe it's playful naivete, or atrophied muscles of various kinds.  Still, my returning here finds me at that in-between of habit and potential.  If the language learning process can be described as an "interlanguage" along various stages of growth, maybe this is my "interpotential."  Okay, that doesn't work quite so well. 

The campus remains empty, with fallen leaves swept only by the breeze.  Small birds (perhaps chickadees) reign throughout the school, and with an occasional rat seen scurrying along, greeting its year.  The time in-between two points can appear fallow if it's approaching something New. 

It's been nice to be back.  Ha Noi has a bit of a chill to it, which first greeted me as I stepped off the plane last night.  I'm wondering how much of this is a part of the wintry weather system that is hitting China.  Either way, my insulationless home has a chill too it, though it's warming up some. 

Having the time away was good, even with all the work involved.  The two weeks of graduate school classes were definitely a marathon, but the conference afterwards was not too much like work.  I found it to be enough like a vacation to be worthwhile.  The kinds of times I've found to be the most meaningful are those when I'm allowed to simply be at rest and abide.  There'd been a number of things sorted through the past week or so related to the future, and I've come out of it affirmed in the direction I'll be heading into. 

So, I've come back from the time away looking forward to the next semester, and, beyond that, even the next school year.  It's been awhile since I've been able to really say "this is how I will claim this life of mine," but I believe I've finally rounded a turn towards a more genuine expression, and a more sincere walk. 

There's a little more details than that, but I feel this is a good starting point.  Perhaps I'll let the details unfold themselves over time! 

On the Myers-Briggs, I'm kind of split down the middle between extroversion-introversion, and my inner-introvert (?) has been appeased more as of late.  It's a Friday evening and I could be "out on the town" or some such thing, but I realize my heart isn't really drawn to doing that.  I'm not altogether against going out and doing stuff, but it feels like I've entered a spell of inaction.  In some ways, my semester has reflected then when I just lacked the energy to head out.  Having no classes for awhile has helped that along, as well, but it hasn't been what's maintained it.  A part of me is seriously considering whether this isn't the final drawing towards ridding myself of so much dross, which usually occurs in private. 

At the same time, I find myself a little more out-of-place with more social times.  Maybe it's just things needing to be counter-balanced by all that introverted time, but I'm slower to talk to people as I used to, which wasn't a whole lot then!  A lot of the more memorable times I have are with people, yet the end of the semester isn't necessarily marked by such things.  Lately, I've found myself beginning towards that place of acceptance of the place I'm at in the present, and anticipating those steps towards the Goal.  People are all along that path, but not during times of stillness.

Then, in over a week will be two weeks of graduate school classes in Chiang Mai, Thailand, an odd number of days to pause afterwards, and onto a week or so conference.  With that people-fest, I suppose it's alright to have this time, even though it feels peculiarly similar to what my energyless times throughout the semester. 

Curious revisitings. 

Seeing time come and go over the past few weeks or so has been a bit of an education in themselves.  With the term and its classes winding down, you get that experience of small conclusions and hopeful expectations of eventual happenings, be they in getting to know people here better, or seeing students do well in what I tried to teach them for the past few months. 

Have I wanted the challenges along the way? Not if I could have predicted them.  At least, so says the fearful coward in me.  I'm beginning to think a little more openly towards these days we're given, and maybe am seeing a little better the Grace pervasive in the small things.  Instead of getting self-absorbed and dependent on the responses or acceptance of others, maybe this heart has come to feel things tenderly without flippancy. 

So, acceptance of days looks like tenderness and fair contemplation, appreciating life in the moments possessed in them, personal failures or even successes of others aside.  Maybe this is serving in Love for this soul here . . .

It's a strange feeling of being at the semester's end.  On one end, it's the common feeling of time "going by so fast," but also realizing a lot took place.  Before this year I've gone through one transitional year after another, and have entered into my second semester with some sense of finiteness.  That has all been due to physically moving from year to year, but I'm wanting to say this isn't going to be that situation this time around (hopefully and thankfully).  Such a change is always possible, but I don't have any foreseeable reason to consider that as the case here. 

With that, my question then becomes "what does one do when embracing the next semester without a fear of what'll happen afterwards?"  Living with abandon.  Maintained relationships, unboxed belongings, and a sense of being settled.  Sure, it's not even next semester, but I'm willing to allow that bit of continuity to splash into the next year for once, trusting that's what He has for me.  We'll see what is revealed between now and then. 

I don't think it's too silly to want to envision that . . .

I got my mobile phone stolen on the bus last night.  I'd heard of people stealing things and what have you, but I usually just made sure to keep my hand in the same pocket as my wallet.  Low and behold, it was from one of my other pockets that this happened. 

Fault can be placed in different places.  One could be how I'm a foreigner, so I'm a target for presuming I'll have nice things.  It could have been I should have known better with choosing to go on the bus with its hazards, so I was kind of begging for trouble.  There's a view of the pressure of the holidays coming up (by that I mean the Lunar New Year), and how that drives people to do wrong.  At the end of the day, though, people are sinful. 

There's no consolation in saying "just like me," but it's a quiet wonder that drives a person to do what they should not do.  In that sense, maybe it's not consolation, but almost remorse.  There's remorse knowing I sin still, and remorse knowing how sin separates people from Love.  It's a mark of infidelity of the soul, showing itself through hungry desires for what we're not meant to have. 

By the end of the day, I will probably have a newly-purchased version of the same phone I bought with the same money my Mom gave me for my birthday just two weeks ago.  I may even be able to get the exact same phone number I used to have, and probably a few new habits while riding the bus. However, something will be lacking, and it's not the phone numbers on the SIM card.  Honestly, it's my pride.  Not all of it, but a fair portion. 

We all hunger for forbidden fruits . . .

This Sabbath weekend (which is how I've come to view the weekend in general, given both have Sabbath connections, though Saturday more than Sunday) I had a curious image of righteousness after I left the Vietnamese service I went to this Sunday morning.  While I was looking for some xoi (which I eventually found for the expensive price of 15,000 dong!  I should have asked first), I saw a Buddhist monk squatting on a street-corner stool.  He was the first monk I'd seen smoking a cigarette and talking on a mobile phone at the same time.  All he needed then was a plate of dog meat and a beer and he'd have become the antithesis of his appearance. 

Coming from the US, righteousness is often split down the middle when it comes to appearances.  There are camps which suggest avoiding anything that can be abused, and there are camps that don't, so long as one is responsible and temperate.  I count myself a member of the latter camp, though I know there are more than just those two, but this is only one entry.  :)  However, I'm unaware of that really being the case in Asia, or specifically with Buddhism.  Having a mobile phone maybe isn't so surprising in today's world, as I saw a monk with one in Thailand, but cigarettes are something else.  I guess since it's technically being of a plant works for vegetarians, right???

As peculiar as the image was, it's sort of been a subtle bit of punctuation with how I've recently been looking at life.  How often righteousness has been designated and quartered off to the area of terms and behavior to me that there's been a slight numbing to it as a state.  Such a state should cause right actions to just rise up, but it has often felt like actions first, state second.  Abiding is a term I could use here if it didn't also get used or brought up heavily, so I'll stick with state. 

Is righteousness first an emblem, or a state? 

How long does it take to get to know a person?  What should we look at first?  Only appearance?  What questions show genuine interest, not just our opinion of the person, or level of agreeability? 

Different things have prompted that with me, but it's the quiet thought of knowing your sense of purpose and identity in life that draws me to those questions about being understood.  As often as I've called myself quirky or even strange or not the best communicator, I need to show myself a little more respect there because we're all a little goofy at the end of the day.  It's just where we look when we face those differences that matters. 

There's a Sara Groves song that settles on my mind with this called "Loving A Person."  She uses a lot of words like "time" and "trying" and "reaching out" and "vulnerable" when she writes about what it takes to show love.  I wonder how much of that isn't what we should show a person we don't understand. 

Do I show that to the stranger or the rude man on the street just as I do to people I would seem to know well?