Monday, June 05, 2006

Curing Who We Are

Still on: X-Men United

Can we “cure” who are?

Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers

In the movie Mutants were either voluntarily or involuntarily “Cured” of their mutations (a.k.a. super powers). I was HORRIFIED at this. Horrified. Even the bad guys getting “cured” (un-mutated – turned human) horrified me. It actually kind of depressed me. It took me til the next day to feel normal again.

END of Spoilers

I’m all about being Different. And I’m not really talking about We the Christians being Different from They the non-Christians. That’s a whole ‘nother thing.

I’m talking about being different even In Christ – Different Parts of ONE body. But still different. Any idea that we all need to be the Same screams legalism to me.

But even this is still off my topic. The point is this:

I was feeling bad on Friday night because of a comment that someone made to me that got me thinking about how much I stand out –physically- in India. My skin color, my weight, my height (I not only stand head and shoulders above most women but I’m taller than most Indian men as well).

I hate standing out and I Stand Out Every Day. I can live in India til I die and Learn 10 Indian languages better than native speakers and I will still be labeled as a “foreigner” (a rich one at that – ha!) because my skin is a different shade than everyone else’s.

How many times have people come into my house and been AMAZED that I can cook Indian food. Yeah, I’ve been married to an Indian for 6 ½ YEARS, I think I can handle it. A lady in my church just asked me on Wednesday (when she heard we had a family staying with us for a few days ) “Who will make food for them?” Uh, me?

Oh, I could go on… but I won’t.

So, I was laying in bed, feeling different and discouraged and all the sudden I was faced with the same question as the mutants in the movie (yes, that is a funny sentence.)

Would I change myself if I could, to “fit in”? I immediately recoiled from the idea. Then I paused, I broke down the question and the answers and then came to the conclusion that yes, I would – but to only an external extent. I would change my height and weight (who wouldn’t?) and most importantly – my skin color.

Who I am inside – I’d never change that.

It’s all just a shell on the outside anyway. And it’s not like what I look like has any kind of super power attached to it that’d I’d lose were my appearance to change. (Except possibly the power to make people stare at me for unusually long periods of time and I really don’t want that super power anyway. I’d much rather have the super power of being able to choose ripe fruits that aren’t over-the-hill – specifically, canelope. – or at least learn how to spell canelope.)

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