11/22/2011

Recently I heard a friend recommend the book Same Kind Of Different As Me. Knowing nothing more about the book, I requested a copy from the library.I didn't know what I was in for!

I love books. I love to read. This book is a real treasure. I laughed. I cried. I'm challenged to consider how I automatically judge someone based on what they look like, dress like, or the language they use. I'm challenged to get out of my comfort zone for the sake of showing love and grace to others.

This book tells the true story (the fact that it is true just makes that much more of an impact) of a wealthy man and his wife who begin to volunteer at a soup kitchen. They end up befriending a homeless man who has quite a past, quite a story to tell of growing up in near slavery in the South during the mid-1900s. It is hard to believe that his life - his poverty, his back-breaking labor and nothing in return - is true and happened in recent history. This isn't a story from the 1800s or pre-Civil War times but one that happened recently with its characters still alive to tell the story! It is shameful. It is beyond sad. And it was reality for this man... and probably for thousands of others like him. The book is written from two perspectives - the wealthy white man's and the homeless black man's.

I highly recommend this book. It's an easy read but it's worth whatever time you spend getting to know Ron Hall and Denver Moore. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll weep over the darkness in the heart of man... and the darkness in your own heart too. And yet, you'll find love and hope springing up out of the darkness.

There's a brief video about the book here, if you're still sitting on the fence about it.

Denver Moore closes the book with these words: "I used to spend a lotta time worryin that I was different from other people, even from other homeless folks. Then, after I met Miss Debbie and Mr. Ron, I worried that I was so different from them that we wadn't ever gon' have no kind a' future. But I found out everybody's different - the same kind of different as me. We're all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain't no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless - just workin our way toward home."

Give it a read! Find out that everyone you meet is really just the same kind of different as me... and you.