Make a Friend, Stop Judging People

 With all the hoopla going on in Indiana about this new religious freedom law the governor signed in I began to think, if more people became friends there would be less judging. I made a friend a few years ago, we became good friends, my friend is gay. I began to think, what if someone hurt my friend because he is doesn't fit into their thoughts of who he should be, it hurt my heart to think of someone being cruel or of someone physically hurting him. People tend to judge what they have no knowledge of, try being someone's friend instead of judging them for being different than you. This was my post for my friend, Chris.

                                                    My Friend, Chris

This is a note I wrote on my Facebook. It is the story of how I became friends with one of the coolest people I have ever known. I hope my friend doesn't mind me sharing this on my blog, There's an important message here and it is that two people who are seemingly different are friends. We have a tendency as humans to judge others and label them and I think it's important to go beyond that and really get to know someone. After all, I almost let the thought that Chris and I were so different that he  wouldn't want to be my friend wreck what became a friendship. I would have been robbed of knowing this wonderful person that I call my friend. Thank you Chris for being my friend
 April 20, 2011---.I began to think about this today and knew I needed to write this. This is the story of how Chris and I became friends.
I didn't even know Chris existed until about 4 months ago.
I went on Jane Fonda's page and posted a comment. Chris responded with a comment. We had interaction on JF's page for about a week or two. I have to interject this right now, Chris and I are as different as night and day, he is a liberal, I am a conservative. But that didn't stop us from becoming friends. I began to have a strong urge to send Chris a friend request, But I thought, no, we are too different, he would not want to be friends with me. Then one night I was online and posted on JF's page, Chris responded. I told him I wanted to send him a friend request, but figured he wouldn't want to be friends, he told me he would happily accept my friend request then proceeded to send me a friend request which I accepted.
I began to get to know this friend of mine. One of the first things he said to me was, "you get to see my pictures now." I did look through his pictures, he had some fabulous pictures. He is a born photographer, he had some great pictures of a trip to Europe he had made. And he had other pictures, there was one picture of him laying down on the floor with his legs bent under him playing the guitar, I asked him if this was guitar yoga, he said," yeah, I like to snap a string when I'm done playing, it makes me feel like a badass." Chris has an incredibly funny sense of humor, he is very smart and witty.
When I first came on FB I didn't post any pictures of myself. Pictures of me are, well there is no other way to say this, crappy. I did finally post a couple of my high school pictures, one of them was me with braids. Chris called me Wendy, I said, "who's Wendy?" he said, "You know Wendy from the hamburger place." Being a smartass I went and searched for pictures of Wendy, the real Wendy. I posted it as my profile pic. He loved it, I made smart ass comments like, does this mean I have to learn how to cook square hamburgers and attention, all people who live in my house we are having square hamburgers for supper tomorrow night. He thought that was hilarious. In one of his posts one day he complained about eating too much pasta, I posted the picture of Wendy on his page the next day and told him to stay away from pasta and go have a square hamburger. He thought that was funny. When I finally got up enough courage to post a current picture of me his comment was , you're beautiful, kindness radiates from your face. Writing it makes tears come to my eyes because when you're friends with someone it's the inner person that counts.
You see I had a mistaken idea that I was supposed to be friends with Chris so I could bless him, pretty arrogant, huh, but as it turns out he is the one who blessed me. I began to really see for the first time it doesn't matter if you're a liberal or a conservative, all that really matters is love. People don't have to see eye to eye to care about one another. It seems in this country we have become more divided by what we think politically and made that more important than loving one another. Real change comes when a heart is changed and having Chris for my friend has changed my heart.