Divison.

I had a few good friends growing up. Good is a way to describe the friendship, not the actual people. As a kid, I hung out with everyone that no one's parents would ever want them to hang out with. I hung out with those kids who caused trouble and raised hell. The ones that probably would be in jail by the time that they were juniors in high school...and that was mostly accurate.

Every day after school, I would go to the "bad" part of town. The side where most kids who grew up in "good Christian homes" were not allowed to go. But, my best friend, Reuben and I always went there. We were those kids. The ones that no one wanted there kids to hang out with, the BAs. We went over there because we weren't judged. The kids who I hung out with grew up in homes that sucked really and they had no reason to judge. They grew up in homes with fighting parents, drunken mothers, drugged up brothers, and abusive fathers. They've seen too much at such a young age...why judge?

And now here we are...years down the road and it all starts to make sense. So many people look at this town with a different pair of glasses than I do. I look at this town with eyes that saw pain and hurt growing up. I saw hopelessness and faithless people. I saw so much that so many do not see. I've seen best friends arrested, beat up, threatened. I've seen homelessness, poverty, and hunger.

How was I so blessed to see this town in this way? How was it that I got a glimpse of things that others who I went to school with never saw? The truth of the matter is that I went to the other side. I got away from "happy, spotless, Upland" and went to the real side of things. I went where people don't hide who they are because they don't care what people think. They are not going to hide themselves because they are not ashamed of it.