Common Sense in Events and Human Diversity

Living in the Pacific Northwest, specifically the Puget Sound, affords the opportunity to ride the State Ferry System (Description - PDF). I normally ride the Bremerton-Seattle Ferry from Bremerton, it's 30 minute drive to the dock. On a recent trip I was put in the lead position of one of the outside lanes where I could look out on the water. But something else caught my eye.

All ships are required to have safety equipment system in case of emergencies. The ferries have an evacuation system similar to the airlines except the ferries use inflatable rafts. The system inflates everything once the worker initiates it by pulling the loop releasing the lock. What caught my eye was the sign, "In case of emergency, get away from the sinking ship." We have to tell people that? I guess so, or someone thought a law should remind us of the obvious.

Anyway, on the suggestion of someone, I went to the Seattle Pride which took place this last Sunday. The parade starts downtown at Westlake Center and goes to the Seattle Center where the event continues with music, food, arts, and other events offered the community at large about human diversity and expression. They estimated about a 150,000 people watched the parade. I prefer to photograph the event staging areas finding people just waiting, preparing, watching, sharing friendships, and so on.

Hopefully I'll have some images on-line soon, but it was interesting just seeing the range of people. It's not what you see in the news. Many of the people before and during the parade were there to see a parade, maybe not as many families as the Seattle Thanksgiving Day parade, but you could easily see the people and especially children were enjoying it and having fun, and many of the children really like the diversity. How we forget children can be more accepting than ourselves.

The connection between the two? Simply common sense. Do you see the divesity of human expression around the world? Where we live in a country which tries to homogenize our public presentation, we forget we're a minority in the world. Events like the Seattle Pride shows us people really are different and it's only common sense to just let people be who they are. It has nothing to do with morality, religion, or whatever belief system you want. What God doesn't have common sense to appreciate everyone in their expression?

Afterward attending the Seattle Center events, which I found crowded and loud, I found a quiet corner where I watched a lovely woman paint faces while people walked by. People came for the food, music and friendship, and it's obvious we really are quite diverse. We come in all shapes and sizes, and grow up to find our own personal expression, whether to follow societal or group trends, or venture into our own expression.

Have you ever been somewhere you're uncomfortable because of the people you see are different than ourselves? We think we're the norm, where almost everywhere else we're not, so acceptance is simply common sense. Don't you think God gave us common sense to use it?