As I sit here at Starbucks, I am enjoying watching the baristas doing their daily dance of creating and serving coffee elixirs.  But this morning there is a refreshing twist,  as they wear their pajamas.  Mostly Christmas-themed, including fuzzy holiday slippers.

Some are participating, some not, in today’s relaxed and fun dress code.  One is just wearing reindeer ears.

What struck me was that they were more animated and playful, and seemed to be enjoying themselves even as they carried out their service to the public.  And I started feeling more relaxed myself.  I was going to wear a long duster coat this morning but thought maybe it would stand out too much in the conservative community here

It’s definitely no Jersey City.*

You  will see the occasional bright blue or pink hair but overall, it’s jeans, dresses, running suits, exercise-wear, the popular legging pants, shorts and sandals.  Business as usual.

I am living in a relatively conservative area.  Not a whole lot of diversification.  I wondered at times why I wasn’t living in a place that offered more of a cross cultural and open-minded environment.

Not that it troubles me.  I generally bloom where I’m planted.

I remember years ago when I lived near downtown Clearwater, I would sit at the Starbucks across the street from the massive Scientology Headquarters.  It fascinated me as I watched men and women walking the streets in their white shirts and beige pants.  Or was it beige shirts and dark pants?

Looking back it was the complete opposite of expressing individuality.

But sometimes I like to imagine a place that is embracing of differences and individuality.  You know, the whole enchilada.   You could be whoever you wanted to be without scorn, without ridicule or worse.

A friend of mine and his husband live in Salt Lake City, a place that is more embracing of  the LGBT community than the rest of Utah. In the church they attend, I think it’s one of those unity type churches, there is a man who will dress in a skirt and blouse or in a dress occasionally.

Can you imagine a world that no longer distinguishes gender as only man or woman?   In which each gender’s characteristics are not so clearly and narrowly defined. A world in which there are welcome those who are genderless, or gender-fluid?

‘A world in which a custom wedding cake is not made into a federal case** as an excuse to tear at the dignity of other human beings.’

A world in which a custom wedding cake is not made into a federal case as an excuse to tear at the dignity of other human beings.

How about a world in which a woman can express her sensuality freely, wear whatever she wants, who enjoys her senses and her environment without it being interpreted as sexual.  Without others shaming her or accusing her of being a seductress, or worse.

Or where a man doesn’t have to prove his manhood by associating himself with aggression, and sexual prowess, and lack of true emotion.  A world in which the worst insult to a man wouldn’t be that he’s a girl. Or has woman-like qualities.

In fact, he would actually feel flattered that he was so balanced within his own being.  That he had a healthy balance of the masculine and the feminine.

Or, you know, a world that embraced and celebrated any size, age, color, gender, race, ethnicity…..

OK! Enough with the musing.  Lest I forget that we are living in a world that is just not quite there yet.  It will take quite a bit more time. But I knew that.  I didn’t come here to change the world, but I did come here to offer a potential, along with others, of a world that would embrace all forms of expression.

And of course that starts with me, as I continue to nurture my own Christ Consciousness.

* Jersey City, New Jersey has been ranked the most culturally diverse city in the United States…hey, I don’t make the rules.  I thought it was Portland!

** Supreme Court Hears Same-Sex Wedding Cake Case
Last Updated Dec 5, 2017 at 1:41 pm ET
The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday over a Colorado baker’s claim that free-speech and religious exercise protections exempt him from state law outlawing discrimination against gay people.