Comfort Zones

 

     While working as a mistress of ceremonies for our state's Congressman Benny Thompson, I had set up two tables for the other people on the program that would be speaking. As time neared for the event to start, the speakers began to take their seats on stage. We all knew each other from participating in various organizations within the community together.

    As the audience took their seats, I began to notice something strange; all of the men sat at one table and all of the women sat at another table. After reflecting on how the night went (successfully), I thought about why the men sat together and not one sat at the table with the women. There were 6 chairs at each table. The men would take a chair from the women's tables adding an extra chair to their tables unwilling to sit at the table with women. I mean the husbands even separated from their wives.  If I knew this was going to happen, I would have assigned seats.

    There was nothing wrong with the sexes dividing in such a way, but it is odd how people will group into groups of familiarity, common interest, and likeness. At our local county school, it never fails that at events for the children; the white people sit on one side of the gym and the black people sit on the other side of the gym. Don't get me wrong. Our community is comprised of nice friendly white and black people that greet each other with smiles and how are you. We all know each other in a generational way. We know grandmothers and grandfathers who have passed away and so forth down the line. In our rural country churches, it is not odd to see the men sitting on one side of the church and the women and children sitting on the opposite side of the church.

    I am a northerner by birth and my husband is a southerner by birth. When we first married, we would go and visit his elderly parents. He and his dad would be in one room and his mother, and I would somehow end up in another room. This was foreign to me. I didn't understand why were in separate rooms. I voiced to him that WE were visiting his parents and I did not understand the separating of the sexes even in the home environment. So, needless to say, WE became accustomed to us all visiting in the SAME room due to my insistence with my husband. His parents didn't mind the new arrangement so I couldn't understand why it was implemented in the first place.  

    What is it about this unconscious gravitation to the familiar - to the more likeness that we seem to do? If we have some built in tendency to surround ourselves with the familiar or sameness of ourselves, how are we ever to experience diversity?

    When I went to the school programs I purposefully sat on the white side. I looked like a black dot in a sea of white and yes, I got stares from both the black people and the white people. In essence I chose to be an outcast. When I went to church, I sat next to my husband. We stuck out like an odd couple and people thought my husband was hen pecked and that's why I sat next to him (Why couldn't I have been the one rooster pecked?). Once again, I got stares and the pastor scowled at me. Once again, I was in the role of outcast.

    Why was I willing to go through the gauntlet of stares, the whispers behind my back, and being labeled as antisocial by the women and black people? Because I was a living breathing walking example for my children, and I wanted them to learn something different.

    The familiar or what makes us comfortable is not necessarily the best for us. We will never grow or find out different views or new ideas if we constantly surround ourselves with people like ourselves who share our every view. 

    In Christianity I have wrestled with the idea of Christians just surrounding themselves with other Christians. This is good of course for learning the Bible, for support and edification, and to bond in the body of Christ. But you can also run the risk of becoming irrelevant in this comfort zone. In a circle of like Christians, who is there to evangelize to the non-Christian? Who is there for you to be the light and salt of the earth for? How can you understand the needs of the unsaved if you are always around the saved?

     I had a professor in Seminary who was a pastor and home schooled his children. He said someone was going to indoctrinate his kids so it might as well be him. The kid's exposure to the evils of the world was only relayed by his word of mouth because their lives were shielded at every avenue- books, television, internet, friends, relatives, and extracurricular activities, were strictly monitored and reviewed by him. When you saw them, they were all mini copies of him seeking his approval with their every action.

    I often wondered what type of evangelist his children would eventually be. Academic wise they will be able to answer any Bible related question, but they will never be able to empathize with life experiences of the unsaved. Were they being rendered ineffective as evangelists by their controlled environment?    How wonderful my life would be with others just like me. I'm so precious. We all know that would not be a wonderful life. When I was a teen, I believed in some things whole heartedly only to grow older or be exposed to new things to discover what I had believed in unto death at that time was incorrect. This pattern of me discovering some beliefs I held not being absolute would continue. As I journeyed through life I deleted, redefined, changed, or retained beliefs as I entered my 30's, 40's, 50's, and I am sure this will go on and on as long as I live. Fingers crossed.

    Being with someone just like me is stagnation. COMFORT ZONES. Is being with LIKE people only really the best we can do for ourselves? Should it be the best we offer ourselves? What happens when we get out of our comfort zone of likeness? I have a rainbow of associates and I have learned something from each and every one of them. I can honestly say that a friendship that I had with a lesbian fellow soldier formed me into a better mother. Seeing the struggle of this young lady as she denied, faced, accepted, and then embraced her sexual orientation at the loss of her mother's love (oh, yeah, she was an only child so the stakes were high for her) made me realize that individual happiness belongs to everyone, and she could not and should not live a life to make me happy or anyone else happy or comfortable. Her different unfamiliar life enriched me as a person and when we reconnected after serving in the Army together, I made sure to tell her how her life experiences I witnessed expanded my thoughts and opinions so I could expand my daughters' access to information through me as I raised them.

    Her soul and judgement would be between her and God. I would not be there for her judgement or have any input. We all would meet our maker alone. So, I learned that my kids were given their lives and they alone would live it. What I may consider easy choices in life for me may not be an easy choice for another. I can disagree with someone without disagreeing with their existence on earth or right to live as they choose. God does not even do that, or He would have a lot to say about all of our choices we make daily in our lives. We are given the opportunity of free will.    

    COMFORT ZONES are in place for the protection of our vulnerable parts. We are uncomfortable with the 'different' 'unfamiliar.' We have social comfort zones without even knowing it. Everyone wants to have comfort. But every once in a while, we should challenge ourselves to step out of them knowing that differences are just that. They are not contagions built to destroy. They are differences that God wanted and intended to make each of us unique for his kingdom's function and purpose. Maybe there are differences just to see how we act and react to them. Maybe differences are about US and who we are and how we treat each other. There is value in each of us in our differentness. Sometimes differences just boil down to a choice between LOVE and HATE.

Let's take time to actually appreciate those differences God created in each of us. Let's celebrate those differences and learn the good things from each. When we do group off into those comfort groups and

look across that aisle, let's remember that there is a likeness, a comfortable sameness in all of us and that is THE IMAGE OF GOD. 

    We all were created with the freedom of thought, and it is our right. We as humans all have a need for food, shelter, safety, happiness, health, and love. We are all shaped by the environment we live in and the people surrounding us but how we became who we are is not etched in stone, we have the compacity for change. Living and experiencing life means experiencing people also. It takes energy and focus of thought to block out the DIFFERENT each time we encounter it. So, when I say we all are more alike I must include we all have fear and sometimes that fear shows up in the way we experience, react, and treat what we deem as 'different' 'unfamiliar.'

    Today I encourage you to every once in a while to step out of your comfort zone. Don't worry, it will be there for you to return to. Be a growing person at all times by experiencing the NEW different people and circumstances and what it/they can bring to your life. Don't be the same person in your 30's, 40's, 50's, and beyond. I am not asking you to GIVE UP your values, morals, and comfortability of your chosen group, but to be aware it/they may not be the absolute for everyone else in the world, and that is okay. The 'different' or 'unfamiliar' does not have to be erased and have a scarlet letter placed on their chest. They are allowed to be different without being WRONG.