Class dismissed

God is not a respecter of persons. I try not to be either.

BUT

Sometimes I feel relieved about my solidly middle-class upbringing. I throw around terms like "white trash" feeling smugly satisfied that these labels could never be affixed to my family then or now.

It's so easy to feel like we're better than someone else. Or worse. Being in the middle means that although it's just the plain truth that others are beneath you, it's just as true that others are above you, stretching out in both directions as far as the eye can see.

I like to think of myself as a kind person regardless of wealth, education, opportunity or social standing. But it would be a bald-faced lie to say I have never felt an awareness of who I am in relation to others.

And sure while maybe I feel lucky to have escaped the stigmas of lower class living, while feeling perhaps insecure about not experiencing the social elevation of the upper-crusts, what I really know for sure about who I am is THIS:

I am a sinner. We are all just sinners.

Trailer park or estate living, blue collar or white, Walmart or Holt Renfrew... these are not the things I want to see. If I ever start to feel ashamed because I'm not good enough, or conversely, superior because I'm better than someone else, I hope I can just remember that before God we all look the same.