I've had a wonderful and challenging experience with diversity over the past few days. I've taken a few days vacation from my high stress job in the Southern Willamette Valley in Western Oregon, and have crossed the Cascade Mountains over to Eastern Oregon to engage in one of my favorite hobbies, rockhounding. The elevation, climate, geology, and people are all so very different than what I'm used to. I've met a motel owner who is also an experience rancher, dog trainer, horse trainer, and rockhound. She is loud, boustrous, and filled with good humor. I've met a friend of hers, who is also an avid rockhound, who make arrowheads for a living. He's a recent widower, indistrious, and cannot stand to live among the trees, or as he puts it, living in a swamp. He thrives on the high dessert chaparel. Yesterday, my traveling companions and fellow rockhounds had breakfast in a small cafe on the highway. Unexpectedly, we ended up sharing our time eating with four big and burley hunters. They were expereinced bowmen, and couldn't be farther from me in terms of world view and their attitude about killing animals. I also met a lone mountain man and his dog, while off road digging miles from any other humans. I've met waitresses, gas station attendants, store clerks and folks just walking down the street. I'm struck by just how different we all are from one another, and I've had to look beyond my own world view to find and embrace their humanity. It never ceases to amaze me that with a little respect and curiosity about "others", I find that we are all more alike than we are different. We all want to be economically viable, we all want our stories to be heard and to have someone bare witness to our lives. And most of all, we all want to be loved and to love. I value and cherish these treasures above anything I can dig out of the ground.
