Diversity

Last week during the days I spent at the Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita, we met regularly throughout the event in groups of five or six people who had been previously assigned to help each other work on our individual challenges.  My group was very diverse, but it included several people who had unusual perspectives on education, the general topic of the challenge I was seeking help on. 

After I had presented the facts of my case, one of the other members of the small group asked a simple question:  "Is there diversity in your educational community?"  The person asking the question had every reason to be concerned about this aspect of people's lives.  She is an African American woman who exudes grace and dignity.  Her professional career began as a middle school teacher.  At some point she became part of the city council in Wichita and served later as the mayor of that city, one of the largest in Kansas.  I overheard her tell someone that she had "termed out" in one of those positions, meaning, I presume, that she had been re-elected until her term limits expired. 

When I asked for clarification about how she was defining diversity, she confirmed that racial and ethnic diversity is what she had in mind. 

Several problems surfaced quickly in my mind as I formulated an answer to this question.  Should I describe the situation in our attendance policy at Pilgrim (where admission at this point is actually limited to children from the families of people in sponsoring or supporting churches because of space limitations)?  Should I describe the mix of people who typically attend our church services?  Should I go into how adoption of children from other countries has diversified the racial makeup of families in the sponsoring and supporting churches?  I knew that I could not easily convey how families, churches, and schools are intertwined. In the end I listed racial and ethnic identities different from my own among the school-aged population, although I realized later that I had missed a few.

I took note since then of the mix on a typical Sunday morning in our church.  Of interest to me is that in every case, the non-typical identities are present because of adoption of children by a family from the dominant identity, or marriage between someone inside and someone outside of it.  In most cases,  immigration to the United States  is involved.   Last Sunday, as is true of most Sundays, these minority groups were represented in our morning worship service:  Asian (India and Japan), Hispanic, African American, and Native American.  Middle Easterners are not represented, and, of course, people of Western European descent are represented in great abundance.

The big idea I'm taking away from this observation is that we are incredibly blessed by this diversity.  While it's nice to be able to give a satisfactory answer to a concerned and powerful African American from Wichita, the main benefit is far more precious, although it can seem nebulous.  Every time we consider how our attitudes and ways of doing things look to someone whose background is different from our own and we engage these people with respect and kindness, we think and act in a way that is more nuanced, balanced, and effective than otherwise.  Because we actually live alongside people who are different from ourselves, we have many opportunities to be reminded of the necessity of openness to other people and other ideas.  Today I give thanks for this great privilege and pray that we don't squander it.