I have very diverse musical taste. There is almost no genre that I have not found at least a few songs I really like.

A new band that has a few songs I really like are Twenty One Pilots. One of the songs that has not been on the radio but has really grown on me is “Fairly Local”.

There is a main line that resonates with me;

“I’m fairly local, I’ve been around, I’ve seen the streets your walking down.”

Walking through this life we all end up walking down certain of life’s streets from an experience standpoint. I know from experience what scripture says, that there truly is nothing new under the sun.

In talking to a guy the other day who was struggling helping a friend dealing with a form of addiction, he did not feel that he could properly relate.

Yet, he was fairly local.

I asked him how many hours he had worked the last week. His brow furrowed and thinking for a moment he said, “I don’t know 60.?” And the week before? “Well, that was a tough one, I probably put in around 70. We were finishing up that big project.”

So you know addiction, I said.

His brow furrowed again, then the realization hit him.

“Yea, maybe I do”, he accepted.

You see we are all fairly local if we just look a little closer.

I have known super wealthy people who did not realize what it was like to be poor. But they did, they were fairly local. Because their wealth made them very poor in other areas of their lives.

You see, we like to see ourselves as very different from others.

But we are all fairly local, in some way.

We are not really different from anyone we meet. We just have different areas of our lives where we are all fairly local if we will but take a moment to really ask ourselves the hard questions.

But, you see, we don’t like asking or even accepting the hard questions.

No, it is much easier to be separate. To be alone in who we are, different, above it or below it all, not the same.

Never the same.

Because you see if we begin to see ourselves as the same, we begin to realize what separates us and puts us in a place better than others is truly much more local than we want to accept.

We are but a step away, if that from others situation.

I have come to realize just how fairly local I am to everyone I meet. My father used to say “but by the grace of God, go I” when he saw someone struggling. I have come to realize what we should say is, “there go I”.

This acceptance of who we are in relation to others makes everyone very real. It brings out our humanness, our humanity, and helps to maintain humbleness.

The same holds true for the significant parts of our lives. We each are rich in some way, which rarely has anything to do with the financial aspects of our lives.

Yea, trust me, I am fairly local….

…to you…

…as you are to me.