Take a Personal Interest in Others
My Dear People,
When I look on it now, that was someone finally saying to me, "How's your life?...How are you doing? ...How's your school?..." ...When I got home from school, my parents never said, "How was school today?... What'd you learn?..." ...For once, someone's asking me how my life is...
For the first time in his young life, Frank Meeink had a sense that someone had really noticed him, that someone thought that he actually mattered. And it started simply with a few questions, a conversation. And that conversation, in turn, led to his finding a place in a community, and an identity, a sense of belonging and, indeed, a sense of mission.
Unfortunately the community that he had found, and that had found him, was the skinhead community.
He was only an adolescent then; however, in time, with his shaved head and a five-inch swastika on his neck, Meeink would become one of the most-widely-recognized skinheads in America, with his own (local access) t.v. show. He would also go to prison following a kidnapping and violent assault.
In an interview, on NPR's "Fresh Air", Dave Davies asked Meeink,
I wonder if, looking back on it, do you think maybe you became a skinhead because those were the people who cared about you and that's the belief system they brought? I mean, if they had been radical leftists or bringing new age philosophy, you could have gone a different direction?
Unhesitatingly, Meeink responded, "Absolutely. I could have been one of the kids at the airport, a Hare Krishna. I could have been anything."
Frank Meeink's story brings to mind some ancient counsel I came across several years ago, and which has stayed with me, "Take a personal interest in others, just as God does." These words were penned, circa 108 A.D., by St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing to a younger protege and fellow bishop, as Ignatius literally rode to his death, his martyrdom in Rome. Ignatius thought this counsel was important enough to include in his last letter to his friend Polycarp. These simple words from a noble Christian soul in his last hours have become, for me, life-defining wisdom. "Take a personal interest in others, just as God does."
Not that I always live up to it, of course. Nevertheless, I aspire to do so. And Frank Meeink's story is worthy confirmation of Ignatius's wisdom.
In time, thanks be to God, Frank Meeink met others (black inmates; and, after his release from prison, a Jewish employer) who also took a personal interest in him. And, once again, the course of Frank's life was altered. As is chronicled in The Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead, Frank Meeink now spends his life working with and speaking to youth about his experiences and what he has learned.
After all, to take a personal interest in others is simply to respect the dignity and worth of another human being, which is simply to love one's neighbor as oneself.
It's amazing how simple it all really is.
To take a personal interest in others, just as God does.
Your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
