“Same kind of different as me”
This is the name of a movie based on the book Same Kind of Different as me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent. It tells the story of a woman who believed in the seeming unlovable, her husband and the man she loved until he could return himself to himself. Following her death, Mr. Hall and Mr. Moore began raising money for the homeless and have, by one account I read, raised more than 85 million dollars.
At the end of the movie, Denver, the once violent sharecropper who spent a lot of his life in jail, delivers the Eulogy. In that eulogy, he says:
“I never met Ms. Debbie. Ms. Debbie met me….Sure ain’t done nothing to be proud of…I was not nice…I used to spend a lot of time thinking I was different than other people…I worried I was so different from them that we were never going to have no common future. What I found out was, everybody is different. Same kind of different as me… Ms. Debbie Is a whole kind of different….Whether we are rich or whether we are poor or something in between we are all homeless just working our way back home.”
In one of his books about his ministry to those who have been surviving as best they could in the grips of the life of Los Angeles gangs, Father Gregory Boyle talks of returning them to themselves while they, in turn, return him to himself. I suspect he would easily identify with the description of these men and women as “Same kind of different as me.” I further suspect that is the definition of true empathy; that ability to see, trust and know that everyone is “the same kind of different as me”.
I am well aware that there are those whose brain is so damaged by physical, mental or spiritual damage that they may never be able to be returned to themselves. This could be any of us. As Barbara Lipska experience reminds us in The Neuroscientist Who Lost her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery any of us could lose our ability to act in a way which is consistent with what we think of as moral or sane. Fortunately, treatment took away the power of the tumors which were controlling how her mind worked and she was able to return to herself. Not every “dis ease” of the mind is treatable. Often, we decide that the Denver Moore’s of the world cannot be returned to themselves and then a miracle occurs. Daily I hear and see these miracles. Those with addiction disorders, other mental illnesses or some combination of illnesses are healed and claim their common future with us. If one, for examples, attends a lead meeting at a 12-step program or downloads one of the apps which deliver recordings of lead meetings, one is likely to hear of horrific crimes again self and others, multiple years in jail, and other symptoms of a life which is without dignity restored to a life of loving and being loved; a life of working, raising children, and helping others; a life of community building instead of community destruction. These are metamorphic miracles. We are all metamorphic miracles.
Many who are raised in a religion which uses the book known as The Bible – the Old and New Testament – will have heard passages from both Isaiah 53:6 and Romans 3:23:
Isaiah 53:6 “We all, like sheep, have gone astray.”
Romans 3:23 “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
However, we say or frame it, the existential truth is that the core of who we are can be buried beneath addiction, the pain of trauma, medical issues, other mental illness or the internalized messages that we are indeed nothing, but throw-a-ways. Yet, that core is there and uncovered will reveal that everyone is “Same kind of different as me.” and “We are all homeless just working our way home”.
Written October 5, 2018
This is the name of a movie based on the book Same Kind of Different as me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent. It tells the story of a woman who believed in the seeming unlovable, her husband and the man she loved until he could return himself to himself. Following her death, Mr. Hall and Mr. Moore began raising money for the homeless and have, by one account I read, raised more than 85 million dollars.
At the end of the movie, Denver, the once violent sharecropper who spent a lot of his life in jail, delivers the Eulogy. In that eulogy, he says:
“I never met Ms. Debbie. Ms. Debbie met me….Sure ain’t done nothing to be proud of…I was not nice…I used to spend a lot of time thinking I was different than other people…I worried I was so different from them that we were never going to have no common future. What I found out was, everybody is different. Same kind of different as me… Ms. Debbie Is a whole kind of different….Whether we are rich or whether we are poor or something in between we are all homeless just working our way back home.”
In one of his books about his ministry to those who have been surviving as best they could in the grips of the life of Los Angeles gangs, Father Gregory Boyle talks of returning them to themselves while they, in turn, return him to himself. I suspect he would easily identify with the description of these men and women as “Same kind of different as me.” I further suspect that is the definition of true empathy; that ability to see, trust and know that everyone is “the same kind of different as me”.
I am well aware that there are those whose brain is so damaged by physical, mental or spiritual damage that they may never be able to be returned to themselves. This could be any of us. As Barbara Lipska experience reminds us in The Neuroscientist Who Lost her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery any of us could lose our ability to act in a way which is consistent with what we think of as moral or sane. Fortunately, treatment took away the power of the tumors which were controlling how her mind worked and she was able to return to herself. Not every “dis ease” of the mind is treatable. Often, we decide that the Denver Moore’s of the world cannot be returned to themselves and then a miracle occurs. Daily I hear and see these miracles. Those with addiction disorders, other mental illnesses or some combination of illnesses are healed and claim their common future with us. If one, for examples, attends a lead meeting at a 12-step program or downloads one of the apps which deliver recordings of lead meetings, one is likely to hear of horrific crimes again self and others, multiple years in jail, and other symptoms of a life which is without dignity restored to a life of loving and being loved; a life of working, raising children, and helping others; a life of community building instead of community destruction. These are metamorphic miracles. We are all metamorphic miracles.
Many who are raised in a religion which uses the book known as The Bible – the Old and New Testament – will have heard passages from both Isaiah 53:6 and Romans 3:23:
Isaiah 53:6 “We all, like sheep, have gone astray.”
Romans 3:23 “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
However, we say or frame it, the existential truth is that the core of who we are can be buried beneath addiction, the pain of trauma, medical issues, other mental illness or the internalized messages that we are indeed nothing, but throw-a-ways. Yet, that core is there and uncovered will reveal that everyone is “Same kind of different as me.” and “We are all homeless just working our way home”.
Written October 5, 2018
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