To Love and Be Loved

I was raised in an inter­faith home.
I don’t men­tion this as an aside.
I men­tion it because it is one of the cor­ner­stones of my childhood.

And that’s say­ing some­thing, as I was lucky enough to have a pret­ty damn amaz­ing childhood.

Not only are my par­ents dif­fer­ent reli­gions, but they are both very involved in their com­mu­ni­ties of faith. My mom serves on the vestry at church and my dad is trea­sur­er of the tem­ple. They social­ize with each other’s respec­tive faith group and com­pare notes after Thurs­day night meet­ings, often laugh­ing at the sim­i­lar­i­ties of the discussions.

Sev­er­al years ago when my mom was in the hos­pi­tal recov­er­ing from surgery, a nurse poked her head in the room and con­fus­ed­ly explained that her rab­bi was there for a visit…confusedly, because my mom’s min­is­ter had left about five min­utes prior.

I had the priv­i­lege of grow­ing up in a home where tol­er­ance and respect for our dif­fer­ences didn’t have to be taught — it was a giv­en. It was the only way I knew.

My broth­er and I were bap­tized and con­firmed in the Epis­co­pal church, where we spent most Sun­day morn­ings, per­formed in the Christ­mas pageants and sang in the choir. We also lit the can­dles at Han­nukah, attend­ed ser­vices at tem­ple on the High Holy Days and par­tic­i­pat­ed in Passover seders long before we were old enough to remem­ber. (In case you were won­der­ing what hap­pens when you give a baby a whole lot of matzah washed down with a whole lot of apple juice — it ain’t good). We showed the same enthu­si­asm for find­ing the afiko­man that we did for find­ing our East­er baskets.

It nev­er occurred to me that this was “weird” or “dif­fer­ent.” It was all I knew. It was the same for many of my friends. And as such, I didn’t val­ue it for what it was at the time — it was just nor­mal. It was my normal.

Then I went to away to col­lege where I got a harsh dose of real­i­ty that quick­ly showed me that my lit­tle inter­faith bub­ble of tol­er­ance and respect was just that — a bubble.

My fresh­man year I wrote about my inter­faith upbring­ing for an Eng­lish class, and a class­mate told me (rather mat­ter-of-fact­ly, I might add), that I was the spawn of the devil.

That’s right.
Because my par­ents are dif­fer­ent religions.
Obviously.

There were many more expe­ri­ences like this one. Both in col­lege, grad school, and beyond. Each one opened my eyes fur­ther and showed me what a rare gift I have. I am beyond grate­ful for my inter­faith upbring­ing and the per­spec­tive on the world that it has allowed.

And I have to tell you. The world makes my heart hurt a bit right now.
I don’t under­stand the seem­ing­ly cease­less string of hate and anger and the result­ing hurt and suf­fer­ing, due in large part to an intol­er­ance of our differences.
Regard­less of our race, reli­gion, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der, fam­i­ly struc­ture, favorite col­or or what you had for din­ner last night, we are all human. We have far more in com­mon than we have different.

We want to love and be loved.
We want to see those who mat­ter the most to us love and be loved.
We want a dry place to lay our head at night.
We make mistakes.
We grow.
We change.
We learn.
We adjust.
We love.

And through it all, we remain human.
Unfail­ing­ly, imper­fect­ly human.
All of us.

“In writ­ing it down you real­ize, love is not a tragedy or a fail­ure, but a gift…that noth­ing in this world is deserved except for love. That love is how you become a per­son and why.” — John Green Tur­tles All the Way Down