Tag Archives: sexual identity

CID: Erin Davey

Presented by Erin Davey during a Cultural Identity Event on January 13, 2012 in Williston Northampton School’s Cox Room.

No Difference
by Shel Silverstein

Small as a peanut
Big as a giant,
We’re all the same size
When we turn off the light.
Red black or orange,
Yellow or white
We all look the same
When we turn off the light.
So maybe the way
To make everything right
Is for God to just reach out
And turn off the light!

A favorite writer and philosopher of mine and so many others, Shel Silverstein, had his priorities aligned in such a fashion that one may not recognize where and when his most important life lessons were staring you in the face. On one page he speaks of a “Flying Festoon” while on another he speaks of a little boy and an old man conversing over their common troubles. How and when are we to understand or recognize when some of life’s most influential teachings are searching for us to find their meaning?

While lacking a persuasive religious analysis to Silverstein’s poem, No Difference, I can certainly speak to its ability to hold true in my life and even yours. While we are consistently faced with cultural conformity and societal norms, we are more often presented with difference. The only problem lies within our own abilities to not just acknowledge them but to appreciate them. I was once victim to such naivety.

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