Late last fall I went for a walk on a gloomy, misty, day in Oak Park, Illinois. I noticed the sign above on the side of an old church. The big white banner stood out against the faded limestone.

I’ve written about INCLUSION before, but on that day, I saw it in a different light. Up to that point, I thought of INCLUSION as all things to do with access for people with physical or intellectual impairments. But on that day, I understood it in a wider context. Jesus was radically INCLUSIVE. He was the first to open the door for all to enter heaven. He took the worst sinners, the most physically handicapped, the mentally ill, and invited them in.

One need not be a person of faith to absorb the message on the banner or to understand the lesson Jesus taught. In today’s parlance, we need to be ALL INCLUSIVE, like Jesus. Regardless of gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities or disabilities, or socio-economic status, we should welcome everyone into our world.

There was a fad sometime back where people wore wristbands that had the initials WWJD which stood for What Would Jesus Do? He would be INCLUSIVE. Simple as that. And like the white banner on a gloomy fall day, we should stand out as being proactive. Each day, we can all actively INCLUDE everyone, regardless of how different they might be. It’s as simple as that.