My Muslim friend...

            I never really considered myself a racist. I certainly acknowledged that I have had preconceived ideas about certain groups in my life, but always believed that my mind was open to logic, facts and experience.

           I had my beliefs, but would be willing and open to be shown.

               About a year ago our company hired a mechanical engineer. I was smack dab in the middle of well over a dozen scattered projects, in equally scattered stages of progress. He heard about me from other managers and did not know exactly what to make of me or how to approach me.

      I tend to be a bit abrasive, it has been said. People skills are nearly absent in my tool box.

          Machines I like. I plug in whatever cable is needed and establish whatever protocol is necessary.

         I understand how they " think". I can reason with them and with a few dozen keystrokes, have them entirely change their purpose...

                                                I do like machines...

              So this short, skinny mild mannered Pakistanian man a few years younger than me introduces himself. We do the regular mill small talk, work histories and places we've lived.

   He seems nice. Of course, being an engineer, he is interested in my projects. We bounce ideas between us about upgrade plan possibilities.

           Then he touched my laptop.

          I was online in program mode. Connected to a machine I was working on...

            Then he actually started pressing keys. It was 3:00 p.m. And I leave at 4:00 p.m.

                And he was messing with my laptop..

           Bad things happen at the end of the day when someone with no idea what they are doing, plays with laptops, online, in program mode, at 3:00 p.m.

                      My people skills slammed into under drive.

                About a month later we were back to pleasant terms and began to open up to each other a bit. He has a wife and two daughters living in N.Y.C. And travels back and forth a couple times a month to see them. I shared with him about my Church and the family that I love and go home to at night.

   We both have interest in technology, 3 D printers, scanners, CNC routers and most all things geeky and cool.

          One day he shared that he was Muslim. It was not a surprise but what was a surprise was our talk afterward...

      It was a quiet afternoon and we were standing in our shop. He started talking about his Religion and about his God. We talked for a while, about the Anti Christ and end times. We spoke about the society around us collapsing and fathers worries about preparing and protecting our families

      There certainly is a big difference in our core beliefs. He sees Jesus as a great prophet and I, as a personal Savior.

     I explained who Jesus was to me and how my Church believes.

       But as we shared who we are behind all the small talk and work rolls, I realized that the differences were not nearly as large and insurmountable as I once believed..

        The biggest truth I faced that day was the one that I never really believed that there were non radical Muslims.

I heard stories and sound bytes but never really swallowed it.

  Suspicions always trumped trust and benefit of the doubt.

   But in this year, I have met one.

         We laughingly shared something else..

        I am a conspiracy theorist. In my opinion, Orwell was a flaming optimist and we live in a world of no coincidence. I sporadically share connections my swirling brain puts together between events and The nature of governments. I stitch together history and current events and the abyssmal human nature that has defined our species, at it's worst and most fearful.

      My Muslim friend nervously giggles when he hears these and outright laughs when I tell him in no uncertain terms, that I am on the watch list.

    He asks why I say this. I tell him that #1, I am a conspiracy theorist. Second, I know technology and understand industrial controls. I mastered the " work around", how to bypass the authorities in workplaces to get projects completed. Every project of mine has plan A thru Z, each created for different scenarios of management dropped support or interference.

   My psych profile is a loner, distrust of government and defiant of authority. 99th percentile on state tests early on. Hundreds of people have heard my theories.

   Yes, they do track these things...

        He laughed harder, secure in the knowledge he was speaking to a lunatic.

     " Then why don't they bother you?" he asks.

          Simple. I'm lazy...

          He laughed more and said that wouldn't do it. There must be another reason.

            " I have a family and adore them. I found my place in society. Nothing really to worry about"..

                 That made sence to him. He said that as a Pakistanian man, he was pretty sure he was "watched" too.

       We joked about both of us being water boarded together.

            Tomorrow is his last day in our mill. He is moving to another one.

                  It kind of upset me.

                    In him I saw someone much like me.

                      Not the paranoid and abrasive me, but the husband and dad who's biggest concerns are his God and his family...

                         So I realize today that I have always been a little racist. Some shame comes with that.

            But in this I also see that I am teachable and that I am reachable. That, of course is God working in me and probably my friend, also.

            In Rocky 4, Stallone talks about change, about dislike and intolerance and suspicion being erased in him, at that moment after the fight.

      He said if he could change and they could change, we all can change.

       Me, I'm still a hot mess, work in progress. But I did change this year...

     If only a little bit...