Hoarders and Outcasts

Over a couple of weekends I volunteered to help an older gentleman move. He lived in a second story apartment and he is an avid book, owl, stamp and coin collector. He collected more and more until soon he had collected so many he couldn't make his way around his apartment. After falling ill, he found that he was lost in his collections.

A group of individuals were sent into help him. They looked at the man and saw he was different, they judged him based on his sexual orientation and as quickly as they could cut and run they did. Do we have the right to judge others based on what they may desire? For a long time in my life I was just like those men, I looked at the outward appearance of a person, or who they were attracted to. What I realized this weekend was, that I do not have the right to judge anyone. I may not agree with them, but that does not mean I have to hate them and does not mean I have to make them an outcast.

I learned that we are all hoarders. We do it differently. Some of us collect dirt and filth on the outside, but most of us collect it on our insides hiding how we are for fear no one would love us, for fear no one can understand us, living in fear and disgust, but to afraid to share it with anyone. We clean the outside really well, but the inside is a disaster, it is all torn apart, but we don't know how to fix that and so we judge others, we make ourselves feel better by point out the unlovable, the hoarders, the outcasts.

Our society has looked at all ranges of people differently through the years. We base how we see them on how much money they make, or who they know or the color of their skin and so on. But what makes someone special, is it who they know, or who they are? I have seen the ugliest people be so warm and loving and it brings me to wonder why. Who am I to judge them based on what they may like verses who they are.

Today I share this with you, not to judge others, but to judge myself for the way I use to be, how I use to judge others based on how they looked, or their sexual orientation, but what I am called to do is share with them and except them right where they are at. We are no better then anyone else and when we think we are, then I better take a hard look in the mirror and see that I am only a man and that is all.