Faith: Love Thy Neighbor

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell suggests that not every decision should be based on intuition. When you have a depth of knowledge and experience in an area, you can put more trust in your gut feelings. Gladwell also cautions to beware of biases that interfere with good decision making, like stereotypes and emotional baggage.

So with that being said...today's issue: the Faith to be a good Christian neighbor when those around me clearly base their decisions on the "depth of knowledge and experience in this particularly Hispanic area". Not my knowledge and experience, but that of my new, very deceivingly quiet hispanic neighborhood with my very incredibly black husband. Yes, we moved smack dab into the middle of ice cream carts, and corn-on-the-cob carts, and sno-cone carts, and grocery carts and we have been singled out to enjoy our share from the discrimination cart. 

I have experienced racism. So its nothing new. Its part of the territory when you are a mixed baby. But its so old, and off-putting because I grew up in a very hispanic neighborhood where that didnt seem to matter. But here, my good decision making is being tested daily:  hold my tongue, hold my actions, and hold my thoughts. My energies have been channeled into finding out what it takes to be a good neighbor despite the circumstances....and i think i found it!