​My early experiences with "difference"

An All Our Fullness story about encountering difference.
By Lisa Wersal
 
Growing up in a farming community in Southwestern Minnesota 60+ years ago, the only people of color were a small number of migrant workers who came in the summer to do fieldwork. The migrant workers made an impression on me, as some worked across the road from us in the sugar beet fields of our neighbor. We were also out working in our soybean fields, removing tall weeds by hand. The migrant workers were exceedingly hard-working, putting in long days all summer.
 
I first met African Americans when I was a junior in high school attending a camp near the Twin Cities for Student Rotarians. I marveled at the girls’ tight curls in their hair, because my hair was straight, and my mother preferred curls, so I dealt with all sorts of uncomfortable hair curlers in my youth. At that event, a Black man performed a song from South Pacific, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught.” The theme of the song is that prejudice is learned, not innate.
 
My family were part of a “minority” of sorts ourselves, because we were Catholic in an otherwise very Protestant region. I remember being questioned (sometimes “grilled”) by other students as to our beliefs and practices, like, “Why do you pray to Mary and the saints?” and “Why do you have to go to Confession?” They would then lecture me as to why their beliefs and practices were “right,” and ours “wrong.” I couldn’t figure out why it mattered so much to them that our traditions differed from theirs.
 
We Catholics were blamed for the fact that the public school served fish on Fridays, which no one liked, even though that particular rule had been lifted by then, so we were not required to abstain from meat on Fridays. Fish sticks were simply easy to prepare for the cafeteria workers.

Lisa Wersal was attracted to Unity Church because of the emphasis on spiritual practice. She co-facilitates Lectio Divina and serves on the Spiritual Practice Packet Team.