TheBanyanTree: takes all kinds to make a world

[Julie Anna Teague]

My kids are so much more AWARE than I was.  No doubt it was because I grew
up in a really small town and we didn't know any Jewish people, much less
Muslims, Buddhists or anything the smacked of diversity. The Catholics all
lived a couple of towns over and they were all German and let their kids
beer and that's about all we knew.  Religious diversity in Otwell,
Indiana, was encompassed by the Methodists on one side of town and the
Pentecostals on the other.  Racial diversity was unheard of.  We did live
in a slightly larger city for five years where I went to a school that was
mostly black.  But I spent most of my childhood in a coccoon of white,
Christian folk, which hindered my worldliness and understanding of
different cultures no end until highschool, when we finally got the hell
out of there.  I say that like I hated it, but I didn't know enough,
really, to hate it.  It was a safe, Mayberry-ish exsistance for a kid. 

In any case, it amazes me and thrills me to watch my kids grow up in a
multi-racial, multi-ethnic city where there are churches of every stripe,
temples, synagogues, Moslem mosques, pagen solstice celebrations, Tibeten
monks who live down the street from us.  They have such an inclusionist
view of things.  Christianity is just one of many views.  They understand
Hannukah and Ramadan and "spirituality" as a separate thing on it's own. 
Andy came home from school yesterday and said he need to get a small gift
because his lunch table decided to draw names and give "Secret
Non-Denominational Fat Man"  gifts.  I had to laugh and be amazed at the
same time.  I don't think I knew the word non-denominational when I was
growing up.  I would've had no context to put it in. 

Julie