Don't Box Me In-Not a Purple Penguin

Nebraska is in the national news right now.  For our amazing Medical Center and their care of Ebola patients. 

 We are proud!

And for an article from a teacher in Lincoln Public Schools for referring to children as Purple Penguins instead of boys and girls. 

We are not proud.

So being called a purple penguin instead of a boy or girl will help our children embrace their identity and learn who they are?  This is so beyond disturbing to me.  

It is dehumanizing.  

It is the same as "that ADHD kid," or those "retarded kids."  Cheerleaders are air heads and football players are dumb.  Poor people have children who are not capable to read. Etc. Etc. Etc.

NO, they are people.  Individual and precious hearts, minds and souls.  Strong and capable with individual strengths and gifts.

More of the pouring everyone in to one big proverbial soup where differences are shamed and lines are blurred.  

This is the soup we all take without thinking and leads to this apathetic, ambivalent and spineless culture.

I get the confusion.  

All of my life, people have tried to put me in a box and judged me when I would not fit in the one they wanted me in.  

Boxes seem to make it simple for people who want a standardized world.  A world of checklist and labels.  A world of fear and the feeble hearted.  

The problem and the strategy involves a change of heart and thinking.

The problem is, getting to know people for who they are and not who we want them to be is hard work.

I get angry when people feel sorry for those poor foster children.  Who exchange respect and appreciation for pity.  Do you really know any?  They are amazing and wonderful people!  

They are strong, resilient and have the kind of skills such as having system thinking and the "opposable minds" professionals try to gain in books.

I get angry at society and systems who treat poor people as uneducated or unknowing.  Have you opened your heart enough to get to know them?

What about the Mom or Dad who have lost their kids to the system?  Do you see them as bad and incompetent and non-compliant?  (See the Power and Control here?)  I see them as survivors, creative and hard working.

Our perspectives box others in.

Boys, girls, men, women...people.  Purple penguins, fads, trends, strategies will all fail if the heart is in a box.  We need to get over ourselves.  

Let boys be boys, girls be girls, people be people and penguins be penguins.

Don't box me in.  Cases in point.

My Youth.

An amazing young man in my youth group is openly gay.  He struggled for years with confusion.  He didn't want to be like the men who walked through his Mom's revolving door.  I love this guy and I respect him so much. My love is not misinterpreted as license.  

He knows I love him AS IS and he also knows I believe the Bible offers a better path for him.  There is no confusion.

Don't box people in.

My Man.

Band geek musician.  Hippy.  Hard rock, worship, contemporary and all music lover.  Wide reader of the classics and the new.  Studied philosophy, literature, theology and the Bible.  Has worked as a carpet installer, short order cook, disability services, ranch and farm and now surgery tech.  He is always learning.  He has beaded, weight lifted,  hunted, loves chess, cooks and he forges knives and sews.  He is stronger then an ox and soft as silk.  He is my authority and my biggest fan. 

 And he is my Pastor.

My Boys.

My boys are active learners.  On the go.  Not good at sitting still in desk or "criss cross applesauce."  Rough, tumble, sweet and sensitive.  When a classmate jeered, "you can't be a football player or cowboy, because they are tough and you are a pastor's kid," is a shallow thinker.  Or "other ADHD kids," said an administrator when speaking of their splinter skills.   By the way, my boys read before school and were huge readers at home and also cared less about others knowing it.  They pack babies at church, open doors for old ladies, defend the abused and their country and love their Mama.

My sisters.

Beautiful, intelligent, passionate and hard working.  All of 7 of them.  They serve people in every area of their lives.  They adore their husbands and live for their children.

Don't let the nurturing fool you!  They can defend themselves handily, change oil, farm, ranch, be personal trainers, leaders, shoot, break horses, pray like crazy and run businesses and churches.