Right and wrong isn’t so black and white

CATHARINE COOPER

When I was 11, I spent several of my Sundays visiting each church in

our town. I was on a quest to understand what made them different,

and why each of them was so sure that they were “the way.”

The hunger of an 11-year-old is not to be underestimated. My

personal conclusion was that none of them held a lock on heaven, and

if anything, they all ran dead last in their published belief, that

in order to reach salvation, I must follow their guidelines. How

could any of them be right, if in their righteousness, everyone else

was wrong?

The argument holds fast today, as disheartening as I find the

situation. The world is more polarized, with the good guys and the

bad guys in full abeyance. Defining righteousness can be as simple as

which side of the political fence one sits.

Do you support Village Laguna, or are you a pro-development

personality? Are you crazed enough to align yourself with whacked-out

pseudo-environmentalists who torch a housing tract in San Diego

County? Are you pro domestic-partnership agreements or do you

struggle with the concept of legal protections for different

lifestyles? “Why can’t we just get along,” as spoken by a beaten

black man, should be posted on billboards and run on television

commercials. Everyone is edgy. The basic component: respect for

differences, has been removed from several equations.

Good guys and bad buys make for great fiction and powerful films.

Polarity adds tension to a story and its plot line. Think of the

possibilities: Cottage huggers sneak under the cloak of darkness and

sabotage the steel girders of a contemporary mansion rising from the

sacred ground of an 11-acre lot. Peace marchers battle pro-war hawks

at Main Beach. A group of fundamentalists wages a legal battle

against a gay couple that wants to adopt.

I hate it when prejudice rears her ugly head within me. I like to

think that I have moved beyond the interpersonal restraints powered

by assumption and societal training. And yet, I admit that I am

uncomfortable in certain ethnic neighborhoods when my language and/or

skin color is in the extreme minority. And I find myself impatient

when I must listen to a foreign language before I can request a

number from a telephone information operator.

At what point do we allow the world to make headway into our

preconceived ideas? Can we stretch our imaginations to embrace that

which is different from ourselves?

The world is not black and white, as I learned from my journey

through religions. It is many shades of gray. Actually, it is many

shades of color. We have walked dissimilar paths to arrive here, but

for the most part, we have all used two feet.

Around you, at this moment, are people you have never met, with

belief systems either vastly different or extremely similar to your

own. Like you, most of them have a space they call home, prepare and

consume meals, and sleep. You notice them in their cars on the

freeway, or walking down city streets, but unless you stop and

somehow engage with them, they remain nameless faces. Like you, they

wake to a new day and fill in the minutes with the makings of a life.

We are more the same -- frail human constructs wandering a large

water based planet -- than we are different. Yet it is our

dissimilarities, our varied strengths that provide for our survival,

insure that we continue to press beyond preconceived limitations, and

further enhance our collective journey.

Why then, can we not embrace points of view that differ from our

own? Why do we clench closely the need to be right? Why do hatred and

strife continue? I don’t have any stock answers, but I am interested

in yours.

* CATHARINE COOPER loves wild places. She can be reached at

ccooper@cooperdesign.net or (949) 497-5081.