Inside from the Inside

A few years ago, when my son was eight, we went to a barbecue at the home of some friends. Zach met a couple of boys around his age, and they disappeared into the woods behind the house armed with sticks and grins.

We were having dinner on the deck when the boys came marching back into camp.  See if you can picture this:

Three kids who’d met each other only an hour earlier, my white son and just about the first two black kids he’d ever met. Three eight-year-old boys with their arms around each other, covered in scratches, dirt and leaves. Three crotches, soaking wet.  Three of the biggest shit-eating grins you’ve ever seen.

Zach had wet his pants. Guess he was having too much fun to come back to the house and use the bathroom, no matter how bad he had to go. He was embarrassed and close to tears. One of the other boys said, “Don’t worry. It happens to me all the time. See, look.” And with that, he wet his own pants. His brother wasn’t about to be left out.  ”Me too!” he said, and soaked his drawers. And with that, they went back to what they’d been doing.

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I wrote earlier this week about otherness.  It struck a chord; I’ve heard heartbreaking stories these last few days. Stories about being excluded because of skin color… the stories of those who’ve carried the burden of being the other, the outsider, the ostracized, the” inferior,” the excluded.

What is the remedy for all this otherness and exclusion?

Pants-wetting, pure and simple. Sacrificial, self-giving, difficult, uncomfortable, messy, wet, intentional, personal actions. Inclusion of the other even when it costs us… maybe especially when it costs us.

When’s the last time you wet your pants for someone?

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