Point of View

“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” —1 Samuel 16:7

Ever since we moved to our new apartment, we walk most mornings around the golf course. The south side of the golf course has less shade, and we were always walking that side towards the sun. It’s gotten so hot that last week we decided to walk in the opposite direction, that way the sun would hit us on the back. It was not going to diminish the heat, but at least we would not have the sun hitting us directly on our face.

Even though we are walking around the same golf course, just the fact that we changed directions has made us discover things that we had never noticed before. Our point of view totally shifted. I noticed a house with beautiful orchids that I had not seen before, a fountain with a statue of dolphins that before was hidden from my sight, another with angels that looked totally different when seen from the front and not the back, and today, my husband noticed how beautiful some trees looked in a corner house. It had always looked like a dense forest when seen from the other side, but from our new point of view, the trees look spectacular. There is also a lighthouse that I absolutely love to photograph. It’s not really a lighthouse, it’s a water tower, but since it looks more like a beautiful lighthouse, I still like to refer to it as the “lighthouse.” When we started walking towards it from the south side of the golf course instead of the north side like we were used to, I took this beautiful picture from a completely different angle. Looking at it from this point of view makes the “lighthouse” seem so much more majestic.

I was born in a communist country, and I left when I was seven years-old. I have a very clear memory of being in my second grade classroom on the first week of school when the teacher said aloud: “I have a surprise in this envelope for one of you. Who wants to get a surprise?” Of course, the entire group of 7-year-olds raised their hands. I was the lucky winner. She gave me the envelope and she told me to give it to my mom since I had to share the surprise with her. Imagine my excitement. I could not wait to get home to open the envelope with my mom to find out what was inside. When I got home and I gave her the envelope, I watched in horror as my mother began to cry after she read the note that was inside. The “so-called” surprise was that I was being transferred to a different school. I had been deceived by my teacher. She tricked the entire classroom into making us think that what she had was a good thing, “a surprise.” All the other kids had been jealous of me because I received the surprise, and yet, the surprise turned out to be a punishment. I was being punished because my parents had decided to leave the country. I had to switch to a strange school where I did not know anyone, in a neighborhood that was far away from my house, and leave behind all my friends. And no matter how much my mom cried and begged the school principal to allow me to stay there, they were reluctant because we were “worms” and “worms” did not deserve to be heard. I remember crying my heart out for having raised my hand on that fateful day, but little did I know that whether I had raised my hand or not, that envelope already had my name written on it and the dice had already been cast.

As you can imagine, that experience plus many others that I lived in my birth country, have steered my point of view in many decisions that I’ve had to take throughout my life. I grew up listening to stories from my parents and grandparents of how they were deceived by Castro and his cohorts, who came into the country in 1959 surrounded by falsehood and lies. He did not formally declare Cuba a socialist state until May 1, 1961, but all along, he was a communist who tried to hide his own intentions to gain the support of the people to overthrow the previous president from government. Many saw right through him, but many others were deceived and sixty years later, they are still paying the price.

We left the country in 1969, first to Spain, and five years later, we moved to the United States of America. I have spent more years in this country than in the other two countries combined. Even though I was not born here, I consider this land my own. I received my education here. I was married here. My children were born here. This country is made up of immigrants. It gave us opportunities that we might not have had anywhere else. I learned very early that in this country, if you work hard, you can accomplish anything you want.

One of the things that I most value about my adopted country is the freedom to express my own opinion. It may be different from the opinion of my neighbors, but just like I respect their opinion, I expect that they in turn respect mine. It is in the First Amendment of our Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

It is impossible that all the American people think the same way. Our points of view are going to be colored by our backgrounds and life experiences. Someone that grew up in Nazi Germany and lost their whole family in a concentration camp is going to have a very different point of view about the freedom of religion than someone that has never experienced hardship because of their religious values. A person whose ancestors were slaves is going to have a different point of view than someone who has always lived in freedom. As someone who experienced first hand communism and its deceptive practices, my point of view will be completely different than someone who has always lived in a democracy. But just because our points of view are different, it doesn’t mean that they are wrong or that we cannot respect each other. We are each going to make our choices and decisions through the lens of our own values.

It is very scary when I look at the news and I see so much hatred. I can’t help but think back to the time of Jesus and how much hatred He also experienced. He was hated because He spent time with the prostitutes. He was hated because He ate with the tax collectors. He was hated because He loved. The Pharisees were more interested in keeping their laws than in caring for the people. A person could not be cured on the Sabbath simply because their law did not allow anyone to work on the Sabbath, and taking care of a sick person was considered work. Their point of view was distorted because they were placing more emphasis on their laws than on their hearts. But Jesus defied them all, and in the process, He taught us not to judge: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged... ‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,” when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye’.” Luke 6: 37, 41-42. He also told us that we had to love all our neighbors, whether we agreed with them or not: “Love your neighbor as yourself... To love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Mark 12:31, 33. Even our own Declaration of Independence tells us “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among those are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Therefore, we should not judge anyone simply because they look different or their point of view is different than ours.

It saddens me when I see so much division in this country that I love so much. It hurts to see so much violence to attempt to inflict someone’s point of view upon another. I remember when I voted for the first time the year I turned 18, not everyone agreed but we were able to listen to each other’s point of view and we were able to respect each other. Today, expressing my point of view aloud could result in death. And that scares me because it reminds me of why my parents and grandparents decided to leave Cuba. They did not have the freedom to express their point of view. Anyone who did not agree with the Communist government could be executed or placed in jail.

When the coronavirus pandemic began, as bad as it was, my hope was that the silver lining of such a deadly virus would be to unite us as a nation. And yet, that did not happen. On the contrary, we are more divided than ever. We only want to consider one point of view, and we are not taking the time to change directions and consider that maybe our neighbor’s point of view may be worth looking at from a different angle. Maybe it’s time to change directions, or else, we may need to start calling our country the Divided States of America.

Copyright © 2020 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.