Stigmatization

It is very rare that someone would have a pleasant feeling when the word “cockroach” is mentioned, and I have been taught to panic when I see one, mainly by my mother. Cockroaches are dark fast-moving creatures, some of them can fly with hideous appearances, not to mention the rumor that they can even withstand nuclear blasts.

Coming to Thailand I knew I will only see more cockroaches than I have before, I’d do everything I can to keep my place cockroach-proof because I have been impressed that anything has been crawl by one is unclean, so unclean that the object almost seems it has been cursed. As expected, they can still somehow slip in one or to very occasionally.

Troubled by the uneasiness after terminating a cockroach one night, I finally looked up on Google to see how dirty cockroaches actually are. Turns out they are cleaner than flies, they would clean themselves like cats do, and I love cats. There are also other benefits for nature cockroaches have, but the truth of them being cleaner than flies brings me relives.

As I am writing this I would still get the shiver of seeing a cockroach. In fact, there was one walked over my toes that I felt, and I noticed that I no longer panic like I used to and deported it calmly out of my room because killing it would make a mess.

This is very much relatable to the story when Peter saw the sheet from Heaven God was showing him with all the unusual animals. God told Peter to eat them, and they were not unclean, but because Peter has never seen those animals nor of them being eaten by Jews before.

I am not suggesting Cockroaches can be eaten, but how easy it is for us to stigmatize something when we don’t know the truth. I didn’t ask my mother to teach me how awful cockroaches are, but her knowledge of them was passed down by her mother, and she then passed it down to me with her reaction toward them, and nothing teaches fear better to fear than seeing her panicking over a cockroach as a child.

Truth is always there if we try to find it, but it is easier to submit to the things we already know than seeking the truth, which that leads us to live in reoccurring fear.

God is the truth we want to constantly seek because fear is when we don’t know God and trust ourselves instead.

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