"You will not be educated in our state unless you are also cross-culturally competent"

"Our unity ... may come from our willingness to get off our agenda and serve each other"

100 public officials, teachers, parents, school administrators, community and business leaders in attendance

On April 30, 2009 Lipscomb University hosted Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors), the school's first Hispanic Forum. The event brought together more than 100 Middle Tennessee public officials, teachers, parents, school administrators, community and business leaders (photos and speech excerpts here) and featured group discussions with the goal of improving access to important resources for underserved Hispanic populations through interactive discussion sessions.

In his keynote address, Lipscomb President L. Randolph Lowry called on the state legislature to support cross-cultural competency, and he urged participants to build unity through service:

I’d love to see a bill from our legislature that said we are funding today the Davidson Group in every county in Tennessee. Wouldn’t that be an interesting piece of legislation? To say, “We anticipate this year there will be thousands of people who simply have lunch with people who look and act a little different.”

What if they passed a piece of legislation that says, “We are not sure that those among us in the legislature who are biased and prejudiced, those who reflect values we don’t really have as a people, ought to get to do that just completely unfettered.” So what we will do is think about how we reflect values that are more appropriate.

Or, maybe pass a piece of legislation that says, “What we want to do is recognize that one of the most precious things we have in Tennessee is the possibility of cross-cultural competence, so we are going to pass a piece of legislation that funds for every school in the state a brand new curriculum — curriculum that says we are going to teach you how to read, and how to write, and how to do arithmetic, but you will not be educated in our state unless you are also cross-culturally competent.”

Well, there are a lot of other possibilities, but the point is simply are we going to try to resolve this politically or are we going to resolve this as people? I think there is no hope at all if we think unity is uniformity. We will never be enough alike so that likeness allows us to live and work together.

What might happen, though, is for us to recognize that our unity does not come from being alike, does not come from thinking alike, or looking alike, or dressing alike, or speaking alike. Our unity comes from something much stronger, and much deeper, and much more profound.

Our unity, in fact, may come from our willingness to get off our agenda and serve each other. What is the Hispanic community in Nashville doing to serve the rest of the Nashville community? What is the African-American community doing to serve the rest of the community? What is the Anglo or White community in Nashville doing to serve? There is something that happens in service to each other that will never happen in a piece of legislation. It bonds you differently.

Let me close with the story of Larry.

I went to law school for three very long years in Minneapolis. We went to a little church in Minneapolis. It was a small church, about 100 people. Rhonda and I had gone to a Christian college, so we were kind of enthusiastic about being of service at this church.

So I would lead worship on Sunday morning, and there was a guy by the name of Larry who would come up to me and tell me how I didn’t do it very well. You may have someone like this in your life. I would work Saturday nights getting ready to lead the musical part of worship, and he’d come up to me afterwards on Sundays and say, “Well Randy, that was okay, but it wasn’t near as good as it could be.” The next week, I’d teach a Bible class and he’d come up and say, “Well you know, you have some good thoughts there but they really weren’t the right focus coming out of that scripture.” So here I am, just a young kid, trying to get through law school, work full-time, go to church and be of some service, and every single time I went, whatever I did, Larry comes to speak with me.

Then Rhonda became pregnant with John, and John was not real cooperative. It was a hard, hard pregnancy. One Monday afternoon I had home from work and was tired. I’ve got to study all night and go to class the next day. And there is a knock on the door. Guess who it was … It was Larry! He’s now making house calls! But he’s standing there holding a big tray. His wife is standing behind him. On the big tray were pots and pans.

Larry said words that I’ll never forget, “Randy, I know you kids are having a tough time. I know it’s hard to get the baby here, and you’re working awfully hard. I didn’t have to work today, so I stayed home and cooked dinner for you. I wonder if we could come in and share it with you.”

In that moment our relationship forever changed. Not because Larry and I would agree on anything. Uniformity is not unity. Its not going to happen that way. There has to be something deeper and more profound, and I think one piece of it is our willingness to serve each other.

Photo by Kristi Jones, copyright Lipscomb University, all rights reserved. More photos of the event, along with a complete press release with comments from other speakers, are here.

Labels: education, events

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