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"We've got to live with our own kind." Whenever Lem said this to Fanny and the kids, they knew they would repeat the familiar pattern of packing their belongings, selling their home, and relocating to a different part of the city.

"But, Lem," Fanny pleaded, "I'm tired of moving. Why do you want to move this time?"

"Too many divorced people in the neighborhood," he answered. "They're a bad influence on the kids." Fanny shook her head sadly. The first time that Lem said he wanted to be with his own kind he was referring to his kind of skin color. "Too many of 'them' in the neighborhood," he whispered, pointing to a Latino walking down the street. "They have a strange way of talking. Not like us!" The second time he decided to be with his own kind, he meant something else. "They don't make my kind of money," he confided to Fanny. "The value of our property is going down because their kind is moving in."

And now they were moving again. "This had better be the last time," Fanny warned. But it wasn't. Within the next year and a half they moved three more times and always because the people in the neighborhood were not Lem's kind. Their worship or politics or clubs weren't like his. They didn't dress or eat or dance as he did. Lem and his family moved to more and more exclusive sections of the city where Lem thought their kind lived. Finally, Fanny had had enough. She gave an ultimatum. "Lem, if you want to move, go ahead. But the kids and I are staying here. We've had it!"

"But, but ... don't you want to be with our own kind?" Lem was shocked that Fanny could think otherwise.

" 'Our kind'? Are you looney? We hardly have any friends left because you keep finding reasons why they're not really our kind. From now on find your own kind on your own because I've decided you're not my kind!"

"Well ... if, if that's the way you want it," he sniffed, "I don't need your kind." A week later Lem moved out of the house into an apartment.

"I'll be fine, just fine," he thought as he looked out of his second floor window on to a neighborhood populated with folks he was certain were his own kind. After all, he had chosen it because the men there wore his kind of suits, they drove his kind of car, voted his kind of politics, and shopped in his kind of supermarket. "Ah, yes, I'm contented here. They're all like me. I think I'll take a little walk down the street."

Lem left his apartment and began his tour of the neighborhood. Humming "My Kind Of Town," Lem hadn't walked more than two blocks when he found himself looking into the window of a liquor store. "Hmmm, I think I'll go in and get a bottle of scotch." Inside he scanned the shelves for his favorite brand. Becoming more and more agitated because he couldn't find his kind, Lem's face reddened and his eyes rolled back so that only the whites were visible. Turning on his heels, he faced the proprietor and screamed, "Where is our kind?"

Startled, the owner asked, "Our kind of what?"

"Where is our kind?" Lem shouted again.

"Sir, your kind of...."

"Where is our kind?" Again the same question but now the sound of Lem's voice was so ominous that frightened customers fled the store. Going berserk, Lem began clearing the shelves of all the bottles. "We want our kind!" he howled. The owner cowered behind the counter to avoid the flying bottles. Shortly the police arrived with a straitjacket and Lem was taken away to a distant place called The Tombs. The Tombs were dreary cells in the psychiatric ward of a hospital on the outskirts of the city. There Lem didn't need to worry about living with other kinds of people because only his kind would ever dare to live there. And what kind was that?

"Our name is Legion!" the voices babbled. "But don't worry, you're our kind of guy! You think, act, and talk like us! Who could ask for anything more?" Lem knew the voices were right. And he was so weary that he wished he could die. In fact several times he had attempted suicide by banging his head against the walls of his padded cell.

"I'm sick of my kind," he cried. "It's a living hell -- living only with my own kind. What can I do? Will no one help me?"

"Hey, man, I will," a voice said softly.

"Wha...?" Lem spun around and spied a small, brown-skinned man standing in the doorway. Lem's eyes opened wide. What was this fellow doing here? He wasn't Lem's kind in any sense. He fell to his knees and blurted, "Jesus, Son of the Most High God! What do you want with our kind? Don't punish us!"

"Hey, man, don't get excited. Who do you think I am? My name is Jesus Jimenez [hay-sus he-men-ez]. I'm jes the orderly. You used to live in our neighborhood. Remember? Then you pick up and leave one day, you and your family. Too bad -- we was jes getting to know you, man. What did you say your name was now?"

"Legion is our name! There are many of us, but we're really all one of a kind. Please, please help me, Jesus!"

"Jesus, man, not Jesus," he said. "You're in bad shape, man." Jesus knelt down, placed his arm around Lem, and gently rocked him in his arms for a minute. "It's not so bad now, is it?" he said. His voice was soothing, but Lem's body was still shaking. Jesus asked, "Do you wanna stay with me and my family for a while? We got a spare room."

"With you? You? Jes ... I mean Jesus?"

"Yeah!"

"Oh, yes! Yes! Jesus! Jesus!"

No sooner had he said, "Yes, Jesus," than his body quieted down while in a nearby field a herd of pigs were going wild.

Jesus laughed. "I guess they got their own kind of problems ... looks like a pig race!" Lem smiled at Jesus. He was beginning to find his kind of people.


Reflection


When we think of "exclusive" neighborhoods, are we offended? Maybe not. We have heard "exclusive" used so often in relation to beautiful suburbs with expensive homes, perfectly manicured lawns and gardens, BMWs, Cadillacs, Lincoln Continentals, well-heeled and well-dressed people that we may never reflect on the meaning of the word itself. Exclusive comes from the Latin ex claudere, which means to shut out, reject. "Our Kind" live in exclusive neighborhoods and "any other kind" is shut out, rejected.

Of course, the people who live in these neighborhoods don't ordinarily exert any physical force to shut out "the other kind." But they probably assume that whoever comes into their neighborhoods had better be able to keep up with their Joneses (if they know what is good for them). Living in an exclusive neighborhood or associating exclusively with certain kinds of people encapsulates us in a very small world. It keeps us under the basket, shielding us from people who have different ideas, tastes, aspirations, and problems. Finally, our passion to be exclusive becomes an affliction. It leads us to reject whatever is different and alien within ourselves. We are afraid of the "inner stranger" who doesn't speak our language, think our thoughts, or share our feelings -- but who preys upon us in our moods, our strange desires, impulses, dreams, and obsessions. We are left with our demons, and they are many.

And how can we be saved? By being inclusive. Jesus is the brown-skinned alien who includes, draws in, embraces, and is finally included in Lem's life. To be inclusive is to invite others into our lives. It is to own our inner stranger -- our shadow, as Jung named it. We are inclusive when our kind is hospitable toward every other kind.

Are we porchlights welcoming only a select few into our lives? Or are our lights burning brightly for people coming from all walks of life? Could something as simple as driving our car in neighborhoods we rarely if ever visit be our first step in becoming the porchlight, the sign that all visitors are welcome at our front door?