The Realities of Creation: Moving Beyond the Limitations of Our Beliefs by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rainbow Ridge Books
Published: 2016-05-03T16:00:00+00:00

Perspective

Linda Minnick

“We are all in the gutter, but some

of us are looking at the stars.”

—Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan

Per·spec·tive: the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed

A few days after my father’s funeral in 1980, my sisters and I were beginning to sort through Dad’s belongings. As you do when you are with your siblings, our conversations tended to be around growing up in the very house we were now beginning to clear out. During a conversation, my older sister was making a point about something and attributed the situation to the fact that we were so poor. To this my reaction was, “Excuse me? What do you mean we were poor?”

She looked at me as if I had two heads (which really wasn’t an uncommon response from my siblings)! “What do you mean, ‘What do you mean?’” she said and proceeded to point out all of the facts and events that supported her statement.

Poor? It never occurred to me that we were poor. In fact, I was blown away. You see, I had a wonderful childhood. I had everything I needed or wanted. I always had plenty of food, clothing, toys, a family that loved me, and a great house. I never wanted for anything. I knew from television that we weren’t rich, and I knew from the mission work done through church that there were a lot of people worse off than I was. So obviously, we weren’t poor. I really thought we were just good old “middle class.” This really, really bothered me that my sister had a totally different perspective on her/our childhood.

This “revelation” followed me back to my own home, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I tried to figure it out. She is nine years older than I am. Perhaps my parents’ circumstances were different when she was little than when I was little. It got to a point where I really needed to figure out where this was coming from. After reviewing in my head over and over again, it became clear that the only real difference in our experiences had to do with high school. As I thought about it, things began to click.

With the exception of college, I went all the way through school in the same neighborhood. I went to school with the same kids I played with after school. All of us lived in the same blue- collar area. All of us came from homes of working-class parents. All of us were on even status. No one had any more or any less than anyone else. We all had the same type of clothes, the same type of toys and bikes. We spent all our summer together at the city park. We pretty much lived very similar lives.

My sister, however, had earned a full scholarship to a very expensive private all-girls’ high school. This meant that for the four years of high school instead of walking to school, she was bussed from

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