Music Monday: Changes in Attitudes

This is a song that my family enjoys, several of the lines convey real truths about life, the universe and everything:

Most particularly:

1. Nothing remains quite the same, and
2. If we didn't laugh we would all go insane.

Some of the things that changed my attitude regarding GLBT issues, were a) knowing someone, and b) remembering that Jesus hung out with the tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, and in general the outcasts of his day. 

If he were teaching today, he would be doing it in the midst of the GLBT community, among others.

Big City - Small Town

In a previous post, I began the story of my own understanding of diversity and social justice.  I said then that I was not sure when or if I would be ready to tell part 2.  However, I have had time in the past seven weeks to think about it, and to begin to tell the story.  This is turning into a longer series than I thought.

As a child, I wished I grew up in a small town, the kind of place where I might have a teacher who had taught one or both of my parents, where aunts and uncles were around, and where people knew who I / my family was.  Not that we needed to be famous, popular, or rich.  Just, I wanted to be in a place where my family belonged.

My sophomore year of high school, my father was discharged from the Air Force.  Dad finished his degree (a second Bachelor's), and over the summer they began job hunting in earnest.  When he was hired for a job in rural Indiana, we moved.

Culture Shock