“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy, we can all sense a mysterious connection to each other.” -Meryl Streep

This week in Hixson Seminar we discussed Cultural Diversity. In lecture a guest speaker, Sylvester Gaskin, spoke about his experiences with cultural diversity and the various conceived definitions of diversity. The following Thursday in recitation we discussed our identities and how we have been influenced by cultural diversity. After evaluating my connections with diversity and dimensions of my identity I came to realize that I mostly have positive connotation with my identities and have not experienced times when it was particularly painful to be associated with such titles.

When filling out a worksheet about the dimensions of my identity I chose American, friend, middle class, Dutch heritage, female, sister, and Christian. I chose these because most describe uncontrollable descriptors of my identity, and the others such as Christian and friend are things by which I chose to identify myself. I believe that other people would agree with these identifiers because most are uncontrollable. I hope that I effectively live in such a way that points to Christ.

I don't remember many of the dimensions that others chose to describe themselves, but most of the girls chose female, and if I recall correctly most of us also chose to identify with being American. I remember specifically that my peer mentor also said sister because she is proud to be the sister of men who have fought in the military for our country. One difference I noticed was when someone said that it is painful at times to be a student because of the financial burden. I disagree, I feel I am blessed to have been afforded the opportunity for education especially with the financial assistance of the Hixson Award.

This week when I see people who are different from myself I will try to be intentional not to first respond with judgement but with understanding and an open mind. When friends or acquaintances are struggling with something I won't think that they are overreacting or just complaining because you never know how many trials and burdens on their heart they're facing at that time.

“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not - and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation - in its’ arguably most [transforming] and [revealing] capacity it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.” 
― J.K. Rowling