Being Welcomed Here

 Kurt Haberstich once wrote, "It is more delightful to step through the open door of a humble house, than to stand before the locked gate of a palace."

I think he meant that it is the quality of welcome we receive that makes the difference. To hear the delight, the warmth, in someone's voice, when they invite us in, whether it is to their home, or their place of worship, gives us the confidence we need to proceed, to walk into a new situation.

Yet, offering a true welcome to strangers can be difficult. We have to remember that each human being is "unique, precious, a child of God," as the Quakers say. It is far too easy for us to retreat into judgement, into "othering", seeing other people as somehow less than we are ourselves. It can lead to all sorts of -isms: sexism, racism, classism, ageism, homophobia.

Ultimately, I believe our welcome should be offered to people as they truly are, rather than pre-judging them by how they identify themselves, or how we identify them - by what they look like, how they dress, the colour of their skin, the number of their piercings or tattoos, their age, their religious faith, their sexual orientation, their gender. Whenever we choose to judge people in that way, we are guilty of being non-inclusive, of putting up that metaphorical drawbridge, which says, "You are not welcome here."

Sadly, this seems to be all too prevalant in UK society today, no matter what we look like or whom we are attracted to. Why do we do this to ourselves, to each other? We are all human beings, each one unique, each one worthy of love and justice and respect, each one with unique gifts to offer the world. As my friend, Yvonne Aburrow, once wrote, "everyone is an unique combination of beauty and diversity, and we should celebrate that. And each form of oppression of that beauty and diversity is different, with its own distinct history, which is different in different places, which is why we need feminism, and LGBT liberation, and Black liberation, and the disability rights campaign, rather than a single, munged-together 'human' campaign."

I believe we need to learn to be aware of ourselves and each other as "unique combinations of beauty and diversity" and to respect and appreciate the struggles that each of us goes through to be recognised as such. And welcome all, regardless of superficial differences.