Keeping Focus

Sorry, still no pictures.  Picture posts take a little more time (especially since I have to go back a ways for them) and I don't have much of that right now as I'm getting ready for our final retreat today/this weekend.

Even though I've been at LSA for almost a year, I realize that one the challenges from the beginning remains a daily focus.  Working and interacting with people from different backgrounds and communities means that not everyone is working on the same set of assumptions, with the same ideas about human interaction.  Sometimes people do things don't make sense to me, like when they ask the price of an item in the Sharing Place while showing me the price tag with a clear number on it, but I have to be careful to give them the benefit of the doubt (within reason) that they are acting in good faith and doing something that makes sense to them.  Sometimes, like when people camp out at the register area like it's their own personal space or dress in a way that I wouldn't be comfortable with or have serial tardiness issues for a free program set up for their benefit or just say something in a conversation or discussion that seems totally illogical, I'm tempted to think less of them in some way or something else that discounts them as people and maintains my norm as inherently better.  But I try to remember the things I have done in other countries that would have come off as stupid or inconsiderate or something else that would reflect poorly on me and how grateful I was when someone else overlooked whatever mistake I had made and helped me figure out what I was trying to figure out, or showed me what I should have done.  More frequently than I would like, I have to remember that I'm working with someone who came to New York from a completely different country and a completely different living situation, or who has overcome or is overcoming poverty, or doesn't speak English, or all of these things, or none of these things.  I don't know.  I don't know their situation, but usually they are not maliciously trying to burden me with their presence or question, so I try to remember that they are humans, trying to do what's best for themselves and their families, and just because their actions don't make sense to me doesn't mean they don't make sense.  Obviously there's is a point where someone uses up their good faith, but that judgment can only come with actual relationship, not first contact.  I have to remember to refrain from judgment of people who I don't know, in situations I'm not familiar with, against obstacles I've never faced.