August 17 marks the 30th anniversary of Unity in the Community in Downtown Spokane. The story describes how organizers plan to Celebrate diversity and unity with a fun-filled event for all!
As a Lay Chaplain, with empathy having opened the door and now standing or seated beside the bed of someone less a stranger, I continue to listen with deep attentiveness.
I ask myself, was I able to effectively engage this diversity, to the extent I did, because I had empathy – somehow already endowed with it? Or did my empathy grow as I continued to engage diversity, in high school, college and professionally – is empathy somehow learned?
Familiarity helps us feel safe and included but it does not make us more creative and imaginative, being immersed in different cultures and surround by and interacting with people different from ourselves does that
In the past, local religious leaders attempted to deal with church segregation. “For a season, it was a fad where folks became excited,” said Rodney McAuley, director of community and church engagement for Spokane Youth for Christ. “We did events and projects where we began the process of tearing down those walls, but when it got tough or when we bumped up against the real life difficulties and challenges around our differences, we, in my estimation, did not maintain the intentionality to see the breakthrough.”