"Oh ... it's a lot different when you put a face with the crime." One of the seniors said this to me on a marching band trip when I was sophomore in high school. I had put my things in the seat I hadn't known he'd already claimed. He had jokingly told his friend he was going to throw the person's things on the floor until I'd told him the things were mine and he made the comment above, deciding to search for another seat.

Still today, this comment seems so wise to me. It's easy to make assumptions and judgments about others when we don't know them. We have attitudes about a group of people and make comments about them we would never make if we knew someone who belonged to that group. We allow our pride, ego and need to be "right" or "better" than someone else get in the way of seeing a person. We justify separation, but separation is sin. Prejudice is fear disguised as hatred.

This summer, I challenge you to "put a face with it." Don't stop there. Put a personality, a mind, a heart, a soul to whatever prejudices you may have, not to change the other person, but rather to allow yourself to be changed by knowing another unique image of Christ. Confront your prejudices and get to know someone who is Catholic, Protestant, atheist, Muslim, old, young, male, female, homosexual, a different race or from a different country than you, in prison, a Democrat, a Republican, homeless or whatever other category of people you find you place yourself above. Let's support each other and be united, not allowing socially constructed separations fracture Christ's Body.

I want love that transcends branches of Christianity, denominations and religions. Love that doesn't feel the need to be right. Love that sees each person, no matter what they do or don't believe, as a person trying to make sense of life and pain and love the best they can. I want love that doesn't think in terms of "us" and "them," but in terms of "we," no matter what undesirable group that means I associate myself with. If there's pain and hurt there, I don't want to thrust it on someone else, but want to include myself in it. I want to step over the lines we draw -- the lines I draw -- to the side that hurts and erase all the artificial boundaries I create to convince myself and others of my goodness. If being good means separating myself from those who are "bad," I don't want it.

Jesus told Peter to take care of his lambs. He wanted Peter to protect not only the ones who stayed in the flock, but also the ones who were vulnerable because they'd been separated. Sin is separation. If we're taking care of God's sheep, we're addressing the hurt, making ourselves a part of it. Love -- true love -- cannot idly stand by where there is pain.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Mo., native studying at Truman State University. She loves performing, God and the color purple -- not necessarily in that order.