Fringe Benefits

Throughout history, it’s been the outliers who’ve gotten it. The weirdos, witches and wanderers wrapped in camel hair. What makes someone speak up? Maybe delusions have a spark of something we need.

The cultural systems that coalesce around us—that, more or less, we inhabit as soon as we’re born—are necessary in many respects. Structure builds the house and what beauty can hang on those walls.

But to stop and think about those who are different... different from what, and from whom, after all? A difference is proof in the truth, a greater reality that walls can’t contain. It’s existence beyond what we can rightly comprehend, even if just a mere opinion. There’s a way we may not explore, but someone else can choose to. With certain eyes, this takes the form of a blessing.

We’re blessed by those who see what we cannot.

Who feel what we’ve never given thought to.

Who endure a reality that looks nothing like our own.

A voice cries out from the desert to those of us living in stone towers. To those of us fresh in from the rain, convinced the sun will never come.