The Power of Exclusion

 

 

It was only the second day of school in the new school year yesterday and "it" has already begun.

You've experienced "it" firsthand.

You remember "it's" sting.

You remember "it's" power.

You can still taste "it."

Sometimes "it" tasted sweet... other times "it" tasted bitter.

Whatever "it" tastes like to you now matters not.

The power of "it" remains as strong today as it did for me 42 years ago as an entering third grader at a brand new school, in a brand new town, in a brand new state.

The "it" to which I refer is "the power of exclusion."

Remember the "cliques"?
The groups?
The sound of "you can't play with us" slapping you in the face?

The power of exclusion is a force to be reckoned with...

My iWitness...

I am particularly sensitive to this topic as I was deeply scarred by "it" as a young boy on the street in which I grew up.

For reasons which need not be rehashed, I was excluded from playing any games or playing with any of the other children on my street for six months. It wasn't that my parents told me that I could not play with them. It was the other children along with their parents who told them, "Do not play with that boy, David Dendy."

There I would stand... across the street and watch them play basketball... totally ignored.
There I would sit on the curb and see the delight in their faces as they played football... as if I wasn't there.
There I would stand at their front doors and knock... and the door would not be answered.

Ever since...

I have always been one to say, "Come on over!" "Come join in!" "You can play with us!"

My hope is that the "power of inclusion" will win the battle against the "power of exclusion."

Will you join with me in that fight?

And that's my iWitness...
Laugh often and Fear not!
David!

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” (John 4. 7-15)