We just returned from a vacation to Hawaii, our last family fling before one of our sons serves a mission for the LDS church. Before we left that beautiful tropical island (sigh), we had a family night where we asked one question: “What meaningful thing did you experience on this vacation?”
Out of the wonderful responses, it was my eleven-year-old’s that really struck me. She is savvy and funny, with Cindy-Lou-Who lashes and a nature-loving spirit. She shared the following as best as I can quote it.
“When we went snorkeling, I noticed the fish. They all shared the ocean, and nicely. They’d pass each other and weren’t rude to each other. They would eat at the same rock and didn’t say, You can’t sit here. Sometimes I see people at school who won’t let someone sit at their table because they think they’re a freak, or not their kind. But the fish didn’t act that way. They knew they were all fish, and shared the water, and let them eat and swim and be happy, just being fish.”
Wow.
I loved that she noticed that connection between fish and people, that we are all human and we all share the same space as it were. We go about our lives—eating, swimming, working, loving—and how wonderful when we do that with love and kindness, and acceptance.
Sometimes we let each other’s idiosyncrasies get in the way of that love and kindness. Not even because of moral or ethical divisions but simply because we’re different in shape, color, or how we choose to swim (alone, in a school of fish, settle under a rock…)
In The Screwtape Letters, author C.S. Lewis shares, “It is not, in fact, different from the conviction…that the kind of fish-knives used in her father’s house were the proper or normal or ‘real’ kind, while those of the neighbouring families were ‘not real fish-knives’ at all.”
Some people are quiet, some boisterous; some candid, others delicate. Some obsess about Pinterest and others devour a book. Whether it’s personalities, interests, or mannerisms, we can do our best to appreciate the diversity and be enriched, or we can be offended and distance ourselves.
For myself, I’m looking forward to a week of enjoying lots of “fish” in the sea—swimming, nibbling food, and sharing the same space, being enriched by what I find.
Best,
Connie
