What's the difference?

When I arrived in Scotland, one of the first things I noticed that marked a difference between me and the Scottish people were their accents. Everyone I talked to, passed on the street, stood next to in line, or interacted with in some other way was different from me -- and it was obvious the moment they started to speak. After a while I was able to distinguish between and English, Irish, and Scottish accents. A desirable skill, yes, but the accents where still there as a constant reminder that we were different. But as time creeped on, and more importantly, as I started establishing relationships and getting to know people, I stopped hearing accents.

Insead, I began to recognize voices. That person sounds just like Naomi. He has the same laugh as Allastair. Martha just walked in the room. Hey, that's Phil....I haven't seen Phil in ages. I can remember the first time I stopped hearing accents. I was sitting on the bus with Naomi, on my way to her universtiy where we were going to work on a video for Radiate together. I can't even remember what we were talking about, but I remember being amazed that I could no longer distinguish between her accent and mine. I just kept thinking to myself, "Do we really sound different?" And trust me, it wasn't because I was speaking with a Scottish accent. She didn't sound Scottish anymore. She just sounded like Naomi.

The same thing has happened with my nieces. Taylor and Chloe have been a part of our family since Christmas when my sister and brother-in-law found out the adoption in Vietnam had been approved. I was in Scotland for the babies' arrival in America, so my first time meeting them was a couple weeks ago after I arrived home.

At first, they looked really asian to me. They probably look asian to you. That's not a bad thing. They are vietnamese, after all. I had the pleasure of spending nearly two solid weeks hugging, kissing, changing diapers, playing with, feeding, and watching them sleep. Somewhere around the 10 day mark I realized they didn't look asian anymore. They looked like Taylor and Chloe. When I look at the one on the left I think, "Aw, Taylor. She has waaay too much attitude for someone who's only 18 inches tall. She just started crawling, doesn't like to take naps or drink her bottle, and she refuses to eat baby food anymore. She'd rather play with my laptop or digital camera than anything you can buy in Toys R Us." And when I see Chloe I think, "She's probably wondering how she can get mommy to give her more rice cakes. She's more concerned with the people who are in the room than the toys she's playing with. And if you put something on her head she'll start laughing hysterically."

The first thing I notice isn't that our skin and eyes are not the same. In fact, I don't notice that at all anymore. Taylor and Chloe are now defined by my relationship with them. I'm not saying that the differences are bad. On the conarary, the array of dissimilarities between me and the rest of the world testify to our magnificently creative God. I've just realized that after I get to know someone who is different than me in one way or another, what defines them is their unique personality and the relationship we have formed. I see what brings us together, not the things that separate and make us unlike each other.

It makes me wonder about racism and predjudice. Illegal immagrants, homosexuals, african-americans, native-americans, the elderly, germans, jews, laywers, policemen.........who do you have a problem with? I wonder what would happen if you actually befriended one of them and got to know the person behind the sterotype.