Inclusion

Now we will be having a special musical number guest post by Brother Brent (who happens to be my actual brother, like we have the same parents and everything).

Inclusion

Inclusion. What does it mean to be included? I'm not talking about the definition, I'm talking about what it means as a person to be included. Why do we, as humans, have a need to be part of a group, part of something? And how do we affect others when we don't include them? I've been thinking about this concept a lot lately, since my brother asked me to write a guest column for his blog. He suggested a response to this article and after reading it I've seen so many ways the principles in the article are shown in the things I see every day.

First of all, let's start with the article itself. I'm not gonna give you a full synopsis on the article, it isn't long and if you're reading this you can definitely read the article. But I will talk about a few of the parts that hit me. Namely, how we in the church handle people with different views or opinions than us. It is easy, not just in the church but as people, to see someone that we disagree with as unintelligent, uninspired, or even dangerous. It's a knee-jerk reaction. It's something that we just do. And that's the main problem with it. Like is says in Mosiah, “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever.” If our natural reaction to a different viewpoint is to treat the holder of that viewpoint as dangerous, is that what we want?

I tend to tell stories, so I'm gonna do that now. About a week ago, I was sitting at home, watching my stories, and someone knocked on my door. I opened it and it was two older men from the Jehovah's Witnesses. I let them give their spiel and then informed them that I was LDS and that I had a different view on some things from them, but then I mentioned that I had read some of their literature and that I felt that we both agreed with each other more than we disagreed. The conversation turned to other topics (my time on the Indian Reservations on my mission, if you're curious) and we were having a pleasant time. Then I heard someone else talking to the other JW. After a few minutes I found out who this other person was, mostly because he walked up my steps, stepped into my house, and started taking over the conversation. This fella was a large guy, seemed clean cut, normal as far as I could tell. I thought it was a little odd that he, a complete stranger to me, decided it was just okay to step into my house. Anyway, then he started taking over. From the way he was talking, I got the feeling that he felt he was “protecting” me from the Jehovah's Witnesses. He attempted to use scripture passages to “prove them wrong,” however, the swig of vodka he took from a bottle in his backpack probably didn't help him put the pieces together too well. In any case, he a fairly nice individual who seemed to simply want to help someone. Luckily this guy never became hostile and eventually left, but I could tell that the Jehovah's Witnesses were not very pleased with the guy.

Why is is important for some people to “protect” others from a different viewpoint? In that story, what convinced this guy that he needed to protect me from someone I was having a pleasant conversation with? I think it's that knee-jerk reaction again, that desire to see ourselves as being perfectly right all the time. And that's dangerous, the decision to exclude someone because of what they think or who they are.

A lot of the time, I worry about the way the world is going. Not because people are sinning more, but because people are excluding each other. Another story from my life. I have a good friend who is a teacher at an elementary school. She moved here from Michigan to teach because, as she says, it was her dream job. This friend of mine identifies religiously as a Pagan, and practices that. However, since living in Utah, she hasn't felt comfortable being her full self, and in a little less than two months, she will be moving back to Michigan. While hanging out with her recently she mentioned that it is unfortunate that it took her two years in Utah before she met anyone that she felt comfortable enough around to talk about the things that were important to her, and by then it was too late. By then she had made plans to leave.

Why is it that we as people are so quick to assume so much about someone based on what they say about who they are? We see it, not just in religion, but in so many other aspects of life, even insignificant ones. Democrats vs. Republicans, police vs. citizens, Playstation vs. Xbox vs. Nintendo vs. PC, cats vs. dogs. It's dangerous to see the world as black and white, and to assume that because I'm on one side and you're on the other makes us enemies.

It baffles me that members of the church can be some of those that exclude others. Our history is full of examples of our own people being pushed out of their homes because they had beliefs that other people disagreed with. Sure, in the church we don't physically push people out of their homes (at least I hope not), but we exclude, we give awkward glances, we gossip, we – in short – treat people differently because they have different views. And that is sad. Why should we push nice people who are causing us no harm off our doorstep? Why should we make people feel like they have to hide who they are because we disapprove? In short, why can't we all just get along? I think if we worked hard to listen to people with different views we would broaden our understanding of others, we would know how to best help them, we would be able to care for our fellow man. In my opinion it's more important to love each other than to convince people that we're right and they're wrong. Although, if you disagree, I got no problem, that's your choice.