Walk With Wayne | Newsletter

...Share the Journey ...Retrieve your Self

October 2005 Vol. 3, No. 6

A Monthly Newsletter Published and Created by Wayne Peacock
©2005 Wayne Peacock. All rights reserved.

Issue of the Month

Diversity: In the past three years, diversity has moved from just another word in the dictionary to a concept of extreme interest for me. For most of my life, diversity was primarily about different races with a hint of the two genders. If you wanted more diversity you would simply add people with different skin colors to the core group with white skin. It is fair to surmise that I was a typical product of white, middle class America in the 40's and 50's.

My eyes have been opened to deeper meanings of diversity, so much so that I have not yet found the boundaries of what all diversity could include. My coaching, leadership, and relationship training have yielded these key awakenings:

All human beings are a miracle with countless unique and mostly hidden aspects to them just waiting to be discovered by others and themselves.
In a relationship system, i.e. twosomes, families, groups, and communities, all voices need to represent themselves and be heard if the system is to prosper.
The greater the differences the greater the possibilities for learning and creating something new together.
The keys to unlocking the gifts of diversity are respect and curiosity.

Friend of the Month

I have gotten to know Tom, the son of a best friend, while sharing a golf cart. Tom, a philosophy major and a non-materialist, is very shy, private and a bit eccentric. He marches to his own drum and the last thing Tom would do was shine the light on himself.

I attended his first wedding many years ago and, in hind sight, I was exposed to some diversity as he married a Greek American. That marriage ended, I suspect, not due to cultural differences, but rather their inability to bridge personality differences.

A couple years ago, Tom's dad told me Tom had met a Japanese woman in New York where they live and work, and was quite infatuated. In my small mind, I thought: "Here we go again; leave it to Tom to fall for a woman with no common language between them. He always has to do the atypical thing. Does he know what he is getting into?"

A year later, Tom and Kiyoko flew to Japan and got married in a private civil ceremony. Returning home, they moved into her home and began to create a marriage. Then, much to our delight, we got an invitation to attend their Vow Renewal Ceremony at a United Nations chapel, across the street from the UN itself.

It turned out to be an authentic Shinto Wedding Ceremony, complete with a chief priest, a Miko (shrine maiden), two go-betweens and an MC. The women were dressed in beautiful kimonos, and the men wore authentic ceremonial outfits. The ceremony included purification, the offering of sacred foods, Norito (ritual prayers), exchange of rings, a vow reading by the groom, and the joining of the two families through the drinking of Omiki (sake wine).

When it was Tom and Kiyoko's turn to rise, all I could think of was diversity and what a wonderful opportunity it was for the lucky attendees to experience differences in such a reverent and majestic environment. In my spacious mind, I saw bridges being built, new perceptions arising, and oodles of learning. I have no doubt that every man and every woman in the chapel was experiencing the gift of diversity at its most glorious. The barriers were down, hearts were open, respect was in the air, and curiosity was flowing everywhere.

Every time I noticed the eyes of Kiyoko's mother and Tom's mom and dad, I saw the bright light of pride and love for the beauty that was this marriage.

The diversity carried over into the reception. To no one's surprise, Tom and Kiyoko's friends were anything but generic. How juicy the conversations were, even when they were language challenged.

Noticing just how nervous Tom was before the service and to a lesser extent before the reception, I can only conclude that facing his fears was the steep price he was willing to pay for a deep and lasting relationship. It made me so proud to be his friend.

There is one private conversation worth including here. I asked Tom how he arrived at this public ceremony, given his deeply held resistance to being the center of attention. He said that Kiyoko came up with the idea of something more than the civil ceremony. Over time he decided that since it was something dear to Kiyoko's heart, meeting her needs was more important than his fears of the limelight. Once over that hump, they co-created the fabulous experience of diversity that served the needs of friends and family as well as those of Kiyoko. It might be said that a woman's love and instinct and a man's courage and creativity made it happen. God bless our teachers Tom and Kiyoko. You opened our eyes and then our hearts.

Muscle of the Month

Muscle #11 - Diversity

On a national level, America can be proud of its "melting pot" reputation, in spite of the sometimes torturous path we've followed to get where we are today. On a personal level, maybe the question is how can we take a less torturous path to the appreciation, understanding and celebration of the differences that surround us. My opinion is that this challenge begins with understanding and accepting/loving the different aspects of ourselves. As the saying goes, you can't give to others what you can't give to yourself. Only when we begin to notice and appreciate our diversity within can we find all the richness and wonderment out there.

To increase awareness and appreciation for diversity one place to begin is to adopt the perspective of a wide-eyed child who finds everything fascinating and judges nothing. As adults, can we retrieve the empty mind of a child? The answer is yes - if we set aside our knowing, opinions, beliefs and assumptions and build up our two primary diversity muscles: respect and curiosity.

You don't have to travel to a strange foreign land to find differences fascinating. Fascinating differences exist all around us if we have the wherewithal to adopt the beginner's mind of a child. Try it and see for yourself.

Teachings of the Month

"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful, living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky".
-Rainer Maria Rilke

"Marriage is an unlimited commitment to an unknowable person."
-Unknown (by me)

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