It’s a word I’ve mused over for years:

Ethno – classifications of people

Centric – in the centre

As I sit in Gent places, I often feel at home with people who come by.  Cozy and warm. And then there are those other times:

… when I have the experience of being seen as other: a visitor, not a resident; Canadian, not Belgian; English-speaking, not Flemish;  male, not female; old, not young.

I too have a touch of ethnocentrism.  It feels light, porous, flowing.  It’s true that I love my friends far more than the man and woman in the street.  But there’s a different colour of love when I look into public eyes … the beloveds arm-in-arm, big families laughing and strolling, the beggar sheltering from the rain, the well-dressed business person in a big hurry.

I feel the humanity of us all, we of the vastly different life situations but also holding the same joys and sorrows.  There is love in my including.

I meet many people, and some of them are so solid in their living.  Some version of “Us / Them” shouts from every fibre.  I don’t know what it’s like to live in a cloud of “I’m right / You’re wrong”, in “We’re better / You’re worse” … but these are alive in every street, in every café, in many homes.

I choose not to despair.  I choose to live my life as an example of something else.  To include.  To feel our vivid particularities and hold them all.  To embrace my loved ones and smile at the folks I’ve never met (and perhaps am about to).

I like another word …

Worldcentric

Let’s try this one on