Same Kind of Different as Me

Ron Hall and Denver Moore, the co-authors of “Same Kind of Different as Me” (Thomas Nelson, 2006) are not writers. In fact, Moore cannot even read.

But, these guys have somehow produced one riveting book (yes, I know a ghostwriter pulled it all together). This is a true story and one you’ve not read before. And, let me tell you, it will grab you by the throat and pull sounds from your windpipe which you have possibly not heard before. More than once, I inhaled or cried out so suddenly that I startled my cats and other coffee drinkers at Starbucks (separate situations; I don’t take my cats to Starbucks).

Trust me; it is best to read this book alone.

“Same Kind of Different as Me” starts in vastly different places: a sharecroppers brutal world (almost impossible to believe this was 20th century America) and the very elite — caviar and corporate jets — universe of an international art dealer. Then, the threads are pulled together in Fort Worth.

This is a “Christian” book, but it is not stereotypical at all. It bores into some very different and vividly-drawn people and does so very honestly. The large-canvas story is told in several incredible narratives of wealth, poverty, adultery, illness, hospitalization, and being black in America. Along the way, it delivers powerhouse insight on loss, grace, living and dying, the veil between this life and the next, seeing with new eyes, and the (most riveting for me) the creature’s eternal yearning.

Through it all, you will find yourself viewing homeless and “dangerous” types differently than ever before. In fact, that is part of the message. We’re all different and we’re all the same: homeless, noble, peace-loving, dangerous, rich and poor, lost and found. Our culture has created something of an artificial chasm between us. It magnifies our differences and ignores our similarities. But, in fact, we’re all the same kind of different.