People will surprise you.  I think this is a fact of life.

I hope….. at long last….  I am learning not to judge people  without any real basis for those judgments.  You know.   At this stage in the game,  I am trying very hard not to slap people with labels.  I am no longer so quick to make judgements by exterior appearances either.

Here is a good for instance.

I know of this man.  He is not especially nice looking at all.  In fact.  He is just a little on the homely side.  He is of Polish descent.  To the point…. he was BORN in Poland.  (Oh, and who hasn’t told a Polish joke in life?)  He is also a bit of an math geek.   At any rate, this gentleman has never married or had kids of his own.  Gay.  (Of course that  part doesn’t bother me one bit.)

But he is such a good guy.  Very smart.  Very kind.  After his sister died, he took in her five children and raised them like his own.

Most people would have turned up a nose at crafting a friendship with such a guy… based on his foreign birth, or his outward appearance, or his homosexuality…. or whatever.  Perhaps because he wears funny hats… and HE DOES wear funny hats.

But I’ll tell you this much.  Once you get to know this guy, he is pretty dang amazing.

As it turns out this guy is Copernicus.  Yes.  Nicolaus Copernicus.  (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) He was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a comprehensive heliocentric model of the universe, which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center.

The dude who put the Sun at the center of the Universe… after so many misconceptions.  Shoot.  It was  even written in the Bible that the Earth was in the center of all things.  Old Nick took some heat for that kind of ‘crazy talk’ too.

But there he was.  Genius.  Smart, smart, smart… and very kind.

So today….  as I walk down the street, I need to keep the idea of Copernicus, and so many others… in my mind.

They might be holding a secret of the universe… just waiting to be unveiled.  If only we give them a chance.

“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” -Copernicus

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe