Living Epistle By: Shawn Ricketts 2/26/2006 I am once again given the opportunity to share with you some of my challenges, my struggles and my joys that over the years have kept me rejoicing in my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I think about the significant impact that some of the experience of my life affected how I treat others and how I view myself as I go through my life everyday. I am very proud of the many opportunities that came my way over the years. As I mentioned in my last Living Epistle that I was born to a family that was rooted deeply into the Evangelical Faith, but during my teenage years I broke away from that denomination to attend the Anglican Church in my hometown In Jamaica. I got to experience worshiping God in different styles, practices, on different days but it was so comforting to know that I was serving the same God. At 18years old I moved to reside for a brief moment in Manitoba Canada. While there I experienced what it is like to leave an island with temperatures that may never drop below 70 degrees, to a very large country where the warmth of the summer is not that much to be desired. While in Canada, I had to learn how to drive on the right side of the road for the very first time. I had to learn how to maneuver a car on snow and ice instead of avoiding potholes, cows, goats and chicken on the roads in Jamaica. I had to get use to a different ways of life for the family who hosted me and for all of us it was a new experience and a pleasant feeling having to make a connection with someone from a different culture. The small city that I lived in was predominantly white, and I found that most people I ran into are always so pleasant and eager to hear about my heritage, they want to know more about my dialect, Bob Marley, the rich culture, the beautiful beaches, and I did regret not paying enough attention to how my Mom was cooking those delicious meals as at that time everyone wanted me to cook for them. It was sad to say that in the midst of all this I did encounter a few people who were rather hostile to appreciating or valuing someone of a different race and culture. It went as far as me being attacked once at my worksite. I would walk into stores, restaurants, public places, private places and there would be different reactions from people I encountered. My experience in Canada was an eye opener for many things and I am forever grateful to God for this experience and the ability to be tolerant, openminded and be mindful of the things around me. When I returned home to Jamaica, I started a career in Tourism and Hospitality. I spent seven years of my life meeting people from all over the world, allowing them the opportunity to bask in the pleasures of our island and being able to share in our differences and similarities. Moving to the United States six years ago brought me into other unique challenges. I first stayed in Atlanta Georgia for a short period of time then moved to Boston and realized that just moving from one state to the next can make such a huge difference. I have over the years chosen to work with Individuals with Developmental Disablities here in Boston. This was truly and eye opener for me especially coming from a country where there Is hardly any recognition for the physically or mentally challenged. It was at first a challenge but now I look back and see these years as some of the most fulfilling of my life. I am able to look back at these years and think that now I can view the person before the disability, it also teaches me about others who are different and how I can see the Person in each other before I look at what is different. Our world is diverse, our country is diverse, our community, our church, my own life s diverse. I have been wrestling with the whole notion of acceptance over the years for so many things in my life. There are so many times that I would be in different situations some of them unpleasant and I’m reminded that I am of a different race, a different gender, a different sexuality, a different culture, that I have different point of views. But the one thing I learned is that to value and appreciate diversity is to view everyone as different from us. The Golden Rule that “we treat others the way we want to be treated” must go further to acknowledge that we are all different and may not want to be treated the same way as someone else. We are oftentimes afraid to have conversations about our differences and that takes away from us the joy of appreciating and valuing each other. I learned that it is diversity that makes up our world, our community, our homes, our church. If we were all vendors then there would be no buyers, if were all leaders who will follow, if we were all teachers who would be students. But the glorious thing is that it’s all a part of Gods plan for us. As fellow Christians we are reminded by Paul in 1st Corinthians 12. that ‘ there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit, and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. There are diversities of operations but the same God that worketh in all. My life is based on my talking and listening to God through the Holy Spirit. “Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.” The Epistle of my life is made up of the joy of knowing that I can look at everyone as a person before I look at their differences. I have my prejudices but as part of the body of Christ I need to value and appreciate that which is different from my own. May God give us the strength and the courage to open our minds and our hearts and begin the conversation about our differences, recognizing and appreciating something or someone amoungst us that may not look like us, talk like us, walk like us, live like us. But that we may endeavor to make ourselves remain all a part of the body of Christ.