Every Sunday, Benjamin Isaiah Black and his family would drive an hour from Akron, Ohio to Mansfield, Ohio to attend a church service at the Oasis of Love Church of Christ, where the congregation is not too small and not too big, and where people know and love each other. 

Unlike most children, Benjamin loved going to church. And he loved being educated on morals to live by through the careful upbringing of his church and his family; and like a lucky few, he truly found himself and discovered what kind of a man he wanted to be. It took a lot of time, enlightenment and growth for Benjamin to come to the realization that he needed to change his approach to life in order to transform from that shy little boy to the man he is today. But that change didn’t come easily; it came with heartache, rejection, grief, and the will to overcome it all.

Benjamin, a 21-year-old theatre major at Ashland University, sat opposite me at our table with orange juice and a hamburger in front of him; he wore a silver dog tag that had the acronym YEPAW imprinted on it, a worn, handmade, beaded necklace donning the words “BRO BIB” surrounded by little wooden hearts, a silver cross necklace, a ring displaying the ichthys symbol, and a black newsboy cap. 

Oh yeah, one more thing, and he also wore a 13-inch-long green pencil with a string connected to the eraser looped precariously around his left ear. He sat up straight and laced his fingers; he looked poised, assured, and eager. Reaching across the table, Benjamin took my hand and firmly shook it, “Nice to meet you,” he said.

I had never met anybody who was quite this unusually friendly. It wasn’t just how he said hello, which he did constantly and genuinely, it was like he was compelled to treat everyone like his best friend, at all times, no matter who they were. 

We had to sit in another room to get away from the loud music and when a worker whined about having to clean the tables, he offered to do the job himself. 

“What if I cleaned the tables,” he proposed. “No really, I’ll get some paper towels, it will be fine.” 

Every person we passed received a “Hello sis,” or “Hey brother, I love you,” half of which were not reciprocated. We sat down and I realized I forgot my pen.

“Take mine,” he said without hesitation passing me a black pen from his pocket. 

Benjamin wasn’t always like this. He wasn’t always this friendly or this outgoing. He was once the peculiar boy at the edge of the classroom, left sitting alone while his classmates laughed and worked together. 

He wished he could say that he wanted to be somebody’s partner, that he wanted to talk with friends on free days and that he wanted someone to choose him first. But he didn’t. Instead he was left alone to scribble on his notebook, counting the seconds until the class finally ended. 

He would look around at all of the students who so easily made friends and wonder where he went wrong. 

“People would all be gathered with each other, talking, and I’d just be here at my desk,” he said, “just looking around noticing everyone else having fun saying, ‘okay, could someone come over here… Does someone see me?’”

But they didn’t. And it wasn’t easy for Benjamin, having people deliberately ignore him like that. It became very depressing going through high school and wondering if he had friends.

It’s not that Benjamin doesn’t know he’s weird; he’s proud of it. It makes him an individual and not a robot. If Benjamin were trying to hide his weirdness, he wouldn’t wear a giant colorful pencil looped around his left ear almost every day. Wearing a pencil makes him happy, and he needs to feel happy. The green pencil Benjamin chose to wear today is one of many, many oversized pencils he has acquired over the years. But his very first giant pencil, which he has kept to this day, was bright, embellished, and crimson red. But what would drive somebody to buy such a thing? 

Well, in May of 2008, Benjamin’s junior year of high school, he went with his Youth Excellence Performing Arts Workshop (Y.E.P.A.W.) in New York City. And while he was there he saw something that really stuck out to him in a gift shop. That thing was a foot and a half long, red, decorative pencil. 

“I said, ‘this is absolutely amazing! I have to have it!’” he said. He started using his new pencil for his notes, tests, quizzes, homework, and everything in-between. “People said it was weird,” he said, “I didn’t care. It’s weird; I’m weird. It’s a perfect fit.” 

Pencils that size come with their own sharpeners, and when that sharpener broke from excessive use, Benjamin couldn’t bare to just throw the pencil away. After all, he had paid good money for it, and more importantly, he loved it. 

“So one day, it just landed on my ear,” he said,  “and it’s been like that ever since.” 

When Benjamin started wearing a pencil around his ear, his classmates couldn’t ignore it, or him. But even though many of them loved the bold change, some people had more offensive things to say. 

“One person thought that I was from an African tribe where they wear pencils on their ears,” Benjamin confessed. “So I told her, ‘when you find the African village that wears pencils on their ears let me know so that I can go home and join them.’” Others would say, “This is a no pencil zone.” 

He knew the jokes were all in play, that people weren’t trying to hurt him. But that didn’t stop him from being bothered by it. 

“When people do things like pat my head, I feel that that’s patronizing to me. Or when they snatch my hat or when they snatch my pencil, I hate that,” he said. “I hate that so much. People know that I hate it and they do it anyway.” 

But high school taught him more than arithmetic and that people can be cruel; it taught him that if you want to have friends, you have to be friendly. 

It wasn’t an easy for Benjamin to transition from the boy people often ignored to the exceedingly friendly man he is today. 

“I was never the popular person, I’ve never been popular, and I know a lot of people would argue that,” he said. “I still don’t think I’m popular.” 

I argued that; everyone knows who he is, how can you not know about the guy who wears a giant pencil around his ear? 

“There’s a difference between being known by people and being popular,” he corrected. “Being popular to me means people know you, people like you, and people want to hang around you.” 

And he knew that just because he was well known didn’t mean people were knocking down his door to hang out. 

“I was, and to some degree, I still am the person people often ignore, the person in the corner who you look up and notice one day and go ‘oh when did that person get here?’” he said. “It still feels like that sometimes.” 

He said this all with a positive tone, like there was nothing wrong with feeling that way. He had learned how to accept and love the person he was and how to accept that not everyone would be able to accept him. 

But that didn’t make the road to self-acceptance a smooth one. It took a lot to get over the tough times he faced in high school, but he found a way. 

“It took number one knowing that no matter how other people see you, or the lack of them seeing you, God sees me, he notices me, there’s not a moment he’s looked away,” he said. “He’s always there.” 

He learned that in church. He learned about the unconditional love he could fall back on that came from his adoring God. 

“It’s such a great thing knowing it doesn’t matter if someone else makes fun of me, or judges me, or if I’m not popular,” he said. 

Although Benjamin found acceptance within himself, he still craved affection from his peers, like we all do. 

That lack of affection can cause people to do one of two things.

“[That] can cause you to try to change who you are to satisfy them, or shut down,” he said. 

But somehow Benjamin found a third option. 

“I had to say, ‘you know what? I don’t care if you like me or not, I really don’t care,’” he said. “If you do that’s great, I’m glad, and no matter what I’m going to love you. Even if I don’t like you.” 

Our whole lives we strive to be able to be free; free to say what we want, do what we want, and think what we want without fear of being judged. Benjamin eventually found his freedom through indifference.

Benjamin tries to love everybody, but for as much as he loves everybody else, he cannot change being himself. 

“I’m with me all the time,” he said. “And I can’t stand not being happy with me. That is such a heartache, a burden, that feeling of not liking who you are,” he said. “You have to live with yourself, and how can you live with someone you don’t like?” 

So he didn’t change who he was on the inside. He did start being more sociable though; he felt that he needed to be this way, this outstandingly outgoing person. One thing that he especially hated was entering a room and having no one acknowledge him. They would even acknowledge other people, but not him. So he said,  “you know what, be the change you want to see.” 

He knew that if he wanted friends and for people to care about him, he would have to make an effort. 

So it became very important to him to acknowledge everyone so that he couldn’t be ignored when he walked into a room and so that others knew that even if they felt ignored by the rest of the world, they would feel loved by him, because the alternative really sucks. 

He lowered his voice and a sober look came over his face, he looked me directly in the eye and said, “There’s absolutely nothing like that hard feeling of having so many people around you and yet you feel alone.”

So he made sure everyone felt like family. And he really considers all of these people, everyone in the world, his family. So he calls them his brothers and sisters and he tells them that he loves them. Sometimes Benjamin is so wrapped up in his own problems he doesn’t see someone, he forgets to say hello. He hates that about himself. He needs to work on that he thinks. Sometimes he forgets names, another flaw, flaws of which he has a list longer than his arm. He thinks to himself, ”I’ve become what I hate!”

So for right now, he made sure that I was aware that he isn’t the kind of man who just throws words around, he says exactly what it is he means. 

“I actually consider you my sister,” he told me. 

However, when Benjamin goes home to his real family, his older brother Bryon, his younger sister Rachel, and his younger brother Gabriel, he doesn’t have to address them as anything other than their names. They were all raised to be close to each other. They laugh, play, talk, and pray together — they are best friends. He knows they will always be there for him; he doesn’t have to second-guess it. 

As a kid, Benjamin was sheltered. He was so involved in his home that to him, the world reflected his house. If it took place in his house, it took place in the world; if it didn’t take place in his home, it didn’t take place in the world. So as one would imagine, it was quite a shock when he went out into the world and he wasn’t always treated like family and not everyone prayed before meals.  

In that world however Benjamin found his calling: theatre. He preforms with energy and heart. He speaks with enthusiasm, exaggerates his movements and makes people laugh.

This man who is writing a play, and helps plan the Black History Month program at his college; who plays the piano and made a scene when he heard Miley Cyrus’s song on the radio, yet he still works for the radio station. 

The ma who is in the Theatre frat, and has less of a religion and more of a relationship with God; who loves himself for who he is, and loves others for who they are; who says that his body is 21 but his mind and soul are 82. 

And who wears a pencil around his left ear, and plans to wear it forever (but will take it off when it’s not appropriate of course), because it makes him happy. 

That man amazingly doesn’t have it all figured out. He looks back at how he has transformed and at how he is still learning and growing and that makes him happy too.

“I don’t think anyone, no matter what age they are, can say they’ve got it all figured out,” he said.

“You figure different things out along the way but you don’t figure out everything. I’m sure there is someone out there who would say otherwise,” he said. “But I haven’t met them yet.”