{"id":1213,"date":"2016-12-10T12:47:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-10T20:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2016-12-10T16:05:11","modified_gmt":"2016-12-11T00:05:11","slug":"christmas-2016-a-fable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=1213","title":{"rendered":"Christmas 2016, a fable"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"starry<\/a>No one recalled when Rudy joined the teamsters, it may have been several seasons back. \u00a0Awkward and quiet, he mostly kept to himself. \u00a0The other guys avoided\u00a0Rudy. \u00a0No one ever asked him to join their\u00a0casual poker games, no one ever invited\u00a0him to hang out\u00a0after work. \u00a0He wasn’t harassed exactly, but their barely hidden disdain was depressing background noise. \u00a0Every day or two he caught a hint of derisive laughter; he imagined himself the butt of a joke he hadn’t heard. \u00a0It was clear the gang\u00a0didn’t like him, and Rudy was pretty sure he knew why. \u00a0It was purely an appearance thing.<\/p>\n

You wouldn’t think it would matter much to a bunch of young bucks \u2014 and the occasional doe,\u00a0like\u00a0Vixen \u2014 hauling cargo. \u00a0But Rudy’s nose glowed\u00a0flamboyantly red. \u00a0It drew attention wherever he went. \u00a0His coworkers, if they thought about it at all, assumed it was from drinking too much, although they also feared a communicable disease, an infection maybe. \u00a0In any case, they didn’t ask, and in his shame, Rudy didn’t tell.<\/p>\n

The truth was that Rudy was transitioning. \u00a0Although he was raised in a traditional reindeer family, childhood tales of flight had fascinated him. \u00a0In school he took a special interest in winged\u00a0creatures: birds, bats, and insects of all types. \u00a0He imagined soaring above the tundra,\u00a0smoke wafting from tiny village chimneys\u00a0below. \u00a0He wanted to be an entomologist, an expert in insects, winged ones specifically. \u00a0But his grades weren’t good enough for college. \u00a0So he contented himself with his butterfly net, and with catching fireflies in a glass jar on warm summer evenings.<\/p>\n

He felt a special kinship with fireflies, the way they hovered in place, their flashing glow signaling to others through thin air. \u00a0Always shy, Rudy wished he too had a way to signal to others, to reach across the void, to connect. \u00a0The longer he gazed into his jar, the more yearning he felt: to fly, to hover with his mates, to glow with an organic light from within.<\/p>\n

After graduating, Rudy joined the\u00a0air-cargo team up north. \u00a0It was seasonal work but the pay wasn’t bad. \u00a0His boss was always in a jolly\u00a0mood, and he didn’t feel quite so alone with\u00a0his team. \u00a0Best of all, the job\u00a0fulfilled his dreams of flight. \u00a0Still, he kept thinking about the fireflies: their peaceful, carefree lives, the way their souls literally lit up the space around them. \u00a0He wanted to be one.<\/p>\n

It isn’t easy for a reindeer, even one running air cargo, to transition to firefly. \u00a0Wings were out of the question; he was no Pegasus. \u00a0Fortunately, with dedicated internet searching he found\u00a0tips and suggestions. \u00a0There was even a small online community of quadrupeds with an interest in \u2014 some called it a fetish for\u00a0\u2014\u00a0chemiluminescence. \u00a0Posting anonymously, Rudy was welcomed in. \u00a0For the first time, his preoccupation didn’t feel so weird. \u00a0He learned that a glowing nose could be achieved with practice (and without scary, expensive surgery). \u00a0And practice he did, day and night, until he glowed just like the fireflies of his childhood. \u00a0Except in red.<\/p>\n

Only last winter did Rudy muster the courage to come out at work. \u00a0He wasn’t expecting a warm reception; after all, he wasn’t that popular to start\u00a0with. \u00a0Yet the blunt\u00a0ostracism of the others shocked\u00a0him. \u00a0He was still the same Rudolph inside, glow or no glow. \u00a0He loved the air runs, but started to think about different work \u2014 leading nighttime tours of the tundra, maybe, or helping with the caribou migration.<\/p>\n

Then one foggy evening before a big run, the boss came over. \u00a0While he rarely talked to Rudy directly, he\u00a0had watched the painful shunning\u00a0all along. \u00a0He asked Rudy to lead the run. \u00a0This was partly practical \u2014 Rudy’s\u00a0glowing nose would cut through the foggy gloom \u2014 but also to let the others know the management didn’t approve of workplace discrimination and prejudice. \u00a0After all, the boss\u00a0was one of the first in the region to employ elves, another historically disadvantaged group.<\/p>\n

Rudy took great pride in leading the run, which by all accounts was completed under budget and ahead of schedule. \u00a0And the wisdom of the boss, it turned out,\u00a0shined even brighter than Rudy’s nose. \u00a0For this single event turned the\u00a0glowing nose from a shameful liability to an asset. \u00a0The other guys now accepted Rudy and even celebrated the diversity he brought to the team. \u00a0Instead of making jokes at Rudy’s expense, they joked instead that they’d all go down in history as the only air-cargo team led by a four-hooved firefly. \u00a0They laughed with him, not at him, and that made all the difference in the world. \u00a0Several\u00a0confessed that they too had dreamed of flight when young. \u00a0A few were even curious to\u00a0learn chemiluminescence themselves, although none ever went through with it. \u00a0Rudy led a number of other runs over the years, especially when fog or a moonless night called for extra light, and was happy ever after to be accepted by his coworkers.<\/p>\n

The moral of this story: Inclusion and acceptance are aided by powerful role models. \u00a0When leaders,\u00a0such as workplace managers, employers, and politicians,\u00a0model\u00a0humanitarian ideals, we are encouraged to rise to their level. \u00a0Conversely, when those in authority promote bigotry and hate, when they fan the flames of xenophobia and prejudice, it gives permission for those who look up to them to show their worst (s)elves.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of MR. LIGHTMAN\u00a0at FreeDigitalPhotos.net<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one recalled when Rudy joined the teamsters, it may have been several seasons back. Awkward and quiet, he mostly kept to himself. The other guys avoided Rudy. No one ever asked him to join their casual poker games, no one ever invited him to hang out after work. He wasn’t harassed exactly, but their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,34],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-human-nature","tag-stigma","odd"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1221,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions\/1221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}