CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

Julie Clawson's blog

In my last post on experience and words an interesting conversation arose in the comments on what it means to welcome others. The question centered on whether or not emergent is welcoming of all if disagreements exist or if “us verses them” divisions exist.

On one level the discussion asks the question if a person can feel welcome in a non-homogeneous group or if they are the minority. I’ve personally talked about how hard that can be for me when I feel like I am not even allowed to be myself in groups. I don’t like being the odd one out, and I know there are some that would rather not make concessions to welcome the other either. I recall a very awkward interracial experience I had a number of years ago in this regard. It was Christmastime, and this good Texas girl wanted her traditional tamales for Christmas Eve. So I headed over to a Mexican market in West Chicago to buy some. I was walking out of the store with my tamales when an elderly Hispanic woman stopped me at the door, gestured emphatically at me, and asked “what’s a gringo doing in my store? What do you want with us?” I replied something lame about the tamales and made a quick exit, but I had impressed on me the difficulty of crossing boundaries - especially the ones you barely knew existed. It is hard to feel welcome or to welcome the other when you really don’t know how to interact with each other.... READ MORE.