Let me hear your story
“Skin color is the last thing I want to think about in a place of worship.”
These words hit me hard when I first heard them. I heard them from a friend, a Friend of Color in our meeting, whose skin color is the same as mine. Some people call it yellow and others call it tan.
Is that why I go into meeting for worship and shut my eyes? Are there more reasons there than wanting to look inside myself? While cherishing the feeling of being surrounded by Friends, do I not want to see their skin color?
Why, when I open my eyes, do I count “us”? Why do I ask, “Is she here today?” “Where is he?” “Am I the only one?”
Several years ago, I attended a meeting for worship for Friends of Color. The theme was “being invisible.” We seemed to be echoing that standing out in crowds is hard, but being invisible is just as hard or even harder.
Why do we feel invisible?
How can we change it?
Recently, I read a newspaper article written by a psychologist, Dan Gottlieb, who talked about how we could start feeling connected with one another by opening a conversation with “Let me hear your story.”
I would like it if someone at my meeting would come up to me and say, “Let me hear your story,” and ask me questions like “Yoko, what do you enjoy doing when you have spare time?” “How did you grow up?” “What amazes you or puzzles you in our society?”
And if people took time to listen, that would be great.
And why not me? Or you? We can all approach people and ask them for their stories. We may actually find friends among Friends of a different color or a different age group—and someday I may be able to say: “Skin color is the last thing I think about in a place of worship.”
Yoko Koike BarnesYoko Koike Barnes is a member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. She translated Starving in the Shadow of Plenty by Loretta Schwarz-Nobel into Japanese. She directs the Japanese Language Program at Haverford College, and serves on the board of Friends Select School in Philadelphia.
