Are We Really All-inclusive?

It occurred to me that perhaps we need to be a little more culturally proficient in our group. Because we are global, we have people participating from many different places with different ways of doing meetings. Maybe we need to become more aware that we all probably think that the way we facilitate meetings is the right way. After all that’s what we are used to, how we grew up in our chosen fellowship. So do we perhaps need to be more flexible?
At the same time we are creating our own culture here in our meetings. Obviously we need a delicate balance between what everyone thinks is the best way while still creating a global culture. And just what is our culture on here? Do we have a rigid way of doing things or are we open to different ways and ideas? Do we allow all kinds of voices and expression or just a certain type of voice?

There are so many ways of looking at things. For me it’s important to start and end on time in meetings. That is what I was taught in my home group. Perhaps for others that is not a priority or they didn’t practice that. So how do we negotiate our differences? We all know what ties us together and what bonds us. But what about our differences?

Our struggles are related to our differences, and how we conduct ourselves. What is normal and acceptable to some is not normal and totally unacceptable to others. Another example is how do each of us look at prayer in the meeting process? With the vast array of nationalities and faiths is it acceptable to use Christian based prayer only? But is there a right way and a wrong way? It seems to me not. In a global community it takes all of our skills of tolerance and inclusion that our programs talk about to make it run successfully.

When I started a celebration meeting a few years back, I believed at the time that, of course it was the correct way to celebrate milestones. Did I even consider other ways of celebrating or asking someone how they celebrate? No, I did not. These kinds of things never really had to be looked at before because live video meetings are such a new recovery platform.

It’s amazing that we do as well as we do. The very fact that we manage to make it work in itself is something to celebrate. Considering all of our cultural differences and ways of doing things, there are still the basics to hold us together. Our literature, steps, sharing and sponsorship. Most importantly though, there is principles before personalities, support despite our differences – we always need to focus on the common denominators.
I admit that I am a slow learner but, I do get there eventually. So how do we go about improving what we have? Like I said, we know and understand our commonalities but do we really accept and tolerate our differences? Culture is so important to remember, to acknowledge and to assimilate also. This is vital in a community like ours with so much diversity. I need to remember to be more tolerant and patient because sometimes I am not. All our voices whether loud, soft, passionate or flat are all okay and are all equally important.