I left Baltimore in 1963. I return every year to visit my family but for the past 55 years I have lived elsewhere. Yet I consider myself a Baltimorean. I read the Baltimore paper, I root for the Baltimore teams, I fret over the Baltimore problems. We tend to define ourselves by family and culture. The Bible teaches us another way. What defines us is not biology but the Word of God. “Blessed are those who hear the word of God.” Those we belong to are not limited by culture or class. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ” Everyone out there is “one of our own.”
