Equality at the Cross

Recently I have been forced to face a long time nemesis of mine, a nearly life long prejudice that I developed during college and never have quite turned loose of since. It is a story filled with resentment and irony, and like all prejudices, ultimately debilitating. It started my freshman year at the University of Richmond.

I was blessed with an incredible family. My parents were amazing people who loved their four children to the moon and back. But, we never had any money. My dad was a Baptist minister of a smaller country church which didn’t pay a lot. We always lived in housing supplied by the church...a parsonage...as it was called. I don’t remember thinking anything of our relative poverty while I was in middle school and high school since most other kids I went to school with were in the same shape. But when it was time for me to attend college, things changed. Dad informed me that he would not be able to help me out with any of the costs of college, so it was probably out of the question for me to go away to school. I would have to commute and University of Richmond was his alma mater so...In order for me to attend college, I was going to have to work almost full time hours somewhere, and even then would be required to take out loans every year. So, I was fortunate enough to land a job at an equipment company out at the Hanover Industrial Air Park where I worked five days a week from 12:30 to 5:30. That meant all morning classes and late night trips from my home in Elmont, Virginia to Boatwright library at night. There was no use bitching about it...it’s just the way it was.

I began to notice...and resent...the many guys at UofR who were from up north, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey. They drove BMW’s and were sent allowances from their parents every month. I envied them their cars, their free afternoons, their exuberant college experiences. My Volkswagen barely got me from campus to Ashland everyday, and by the time I had spent 5 hours in an unairconditioned warehouse building wooden pallets all day, and a couple of hours in the library, parties were a rare luxury...not a nightly ritual. Over the four and a half years it took me to graduate, I developed a deep resentment for...rich people...the kinds of people who gave their teenage sons European luxury cars, the kinds of people who inherited money, the kinds of people who joined country clubs and sent their kids to Collegiate. I listened to them talk about their money, I heard the stories of their wealth and became keenly aware of my own heritage...a grandfather who was a share cropper...and slowly, a bitterness began to form in my heart. A chip climbed up on my shoulder and in many ways has never left.

Of course the ironies of such a prejudice are striking. I have made a living as an investment advisor, helping regular people get rich and rich people get richer. My profession places me smack dab in the middle of the kinds of people I learned to resent all those years ago. I love my clients. They are great people. Yet..I still feel uncomfortable driving through an affluent neighborhood. Even though I can afford it, there isn’t a country club anywhere in the world that I would join. And now...for the last three years I have found a church home that I dearly love...but in which I am surrounded by people who send their kids to Collegiate!! Like I said, ironies abound.

Here’s what I’ve learned at Hope Church. The unspeakable heartbreaks of life are no respecter of persons. God is not impressed with our money, our cars or our homes. Tragedy befalls all of us, rich and poor alike. Cancer takes our kids from us. Our kids get destroyed by addictions. Those we love the most still lose their way and take their own lives...whether we live on River Road or in public housing. Although we all know this intellectually, it becomes real when it happens to someone you have come to know. 

Attending an affluent church like Hope has been an adjustment for me. I still feel a bit uncomfortable there at times. The old resentments rise to the surface at the strangest times. But, I’ve met some incredible people there, people who are forcing me to examine myself and my resentments. I’m learning to look past the surface, to take the time to get past the superficial. Underneath the trappings, we are all human beings trying to make sense of the world, searching for transcendent meaning. It is at the cross where we discover our equality. It’s the place where we lay aside our differences. For the first time I’m learning how to do just that.