Scaffolding 2

Here is my worldview, revisited. Also known as the second part of a paper I have to write for Core class. Enjoy, you curious folk.

The way I view the world is rapidly changing, especially lately, so that it seems like the entire world is changing. However, the only different thing is my understanding of a world that has existed all the while. Now, I know the world itself changes, but several important characteristics have prevailed throughout history (albeit in different variations). There are both positive characteristics like love, community, and hope; and negative ones like poverty, injustice, and hate. With each week that passes, I am more acutely aware of what these characteristics meant to me when I was younger, and what they mean to me now. This is my worldview.

When I was young, life was good. I mean, really good. I was raised in an affluent, white, Christian home, which means that the only persecution I ever experienced growing up was a kid calling me fat in the 4th grade. Although it hurt, I think the pain of racial discrimination, monetary insufficiency, or educational deprivation, had I experienced any of these, would have been much deeper and longer lasting. I went to a private school, the highest form of elite education available, and all my classmates were white. We listened to pop music, wore the same clothes, and lived in the same neighborhoods. My church had an arcade room, ping-pong tables, and a concession stand, all existing for the purpose of outreach, even though I never brought anyone to church because all my friends went there already. All this to say, I grew up with people who I thought were just like me.

Now what does this upbringing do to someone? It makes them see everyone they meet with the perspective that they are the same. So in high school, when I became best friends with a girl who had immigrated to America illegally, I overlooked it. I simply saw her as a girl who goes to my school, so we must have similar upbringings, home lives, and motivations. I look back at this and am horrified at my naiveté. I assumed that everyone was just like me, and therefore, I could not empathize with people, feel their pain, help them through their struggles. Poverty existed in a third world country somewhere; racial and gender discrimination ended in the 60's; and people's problems weren't any different than mine.

Today, I look at the world through different eyes. Back then, I found purpose and satisfaction in other people, so that by being outgoing, funny, and hyper, I could be pervasively happy. It never occurred to me that everyone didn't like uber-excited, superficial, outgoing youngsters. I didn't even recognize my motivation. All I knew is that the people around me liked me when I made them laugh. Today, I eschew that type of behavior for myself. I am not outgoing in most social situations, which in turn makes me look for others like me. I search for the outsiders, the marginalized, the ones who don't fit in. Also, poverty is no longer across national boundaries but down the street, embodied and living. Poverty now has a face, faces. And I can no longer turn the music up louder or watch more television, because the problem is in a place where it cannot be avoided--my heart. I see my purpose as a Christian to help the least of these, a term that Jesus used to refer to the poor, the blind, the needy, the sick. Everything else I do now seems pointless. Why do I play ping-pong when people need help rebuilding their homes? Why do I do homework when someone is crying for a listening ear? Does helping the poor require a four-year education? Why am I spending $30,000 a year when there are people across the street who are having basic needs go unmet?

Essentially, my worldview has changed from content to dissatisfied. I am dissatisfied with the world as it is for the sake of others, not myself. The world is not right, and I have been on the side of those who have made the world not right. Whereas when I was younger, I enjoyed the benefits without considering where they came from; now, I am beginning to see who have wealth and security, who have poverty and need, and that my purpose is to help those who have not. I used to take freely; now, I must give generously.