I’ve been reading Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” which is from the viewpoint of the “conquered,” the working class, etc. I’m currently taking a class on the history of Native Americans/American Indians/First Nations. I walked with my son through Harlem during the Million Youth March in 1998, which drew far fewer than a million, but still, it was powerful. I’ve visited slums in India. I’ve been to some pretty elegant mansions in the US. I’ve studied different religions. I know people with super high IQs and others who weren’t born that way. I know a lady who won the Boston Marathon in her age group. And I know a man who won gold in a Special Olympics state meet. I’ve held my infants in my arms…and I held my dad’s hand as he took his last breath.

The older I get, the more panoramic I get. I used to think everyone saw the world as I see it. As Anais Nin once said, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

Which begs the question. Who among us has a corner on the market? THE human vantage point that “trumps” all the others?

Not one of us.

Yet we have some choice. We can choose our religion, the “God vantage point”/faith journey that makes the most sense to us. We can choose our attitude. We can choose to be magnanimous in our dealings with each other (or not).

I just want to challenge each of us to walk a mile in each other’s moccasins before we judge. And yeah, “us” starts with me.