Service, Volunteering, Obama, Interfaith, Ecumenism, Race Issues, Diversity

Obama's Call to Service - Ebony, Ivory and Mariachi

Many churches, synagogues and mosques have varying programs that allow members to perform required or volunteer outreach. These opportunites can help to lead one to get a better understanding of one's own faith, as well as enhance one's professional emphasis, ecumenism, interfaith and cross-cultural efforts. And the President Elect has just called for all of us to get more involved in these efforts.

After completing a year of volunteer work for the elderly per the Jesuit Volunteer (JV) Corps: Southwest in the San Jaquin area of California in 1981, I was looking for a church community to join in San Diego, where I was enrolled in Graduate Social Work at SDSU with an emphasis in gerontology.

Per a contact at a parish gatheing, I found out about an elderly lady, Lucille, who needed someone to be a live-in caregiver, which I was able to do during my first year in school. What a blessing to learn more about elder concerns than I ever could have per all those textbooks we had to read. During my second year in graduate school, after getting married, we would still do a lot with Lucille and her family.

My wife and I also became involved per the parish and the SDSU Newman Center in outreach to the Hispanic like the Tecate Orphanage; we both are from Spanish heritage but only spoke "un pocito" (very little) the language. This ministry allowed us to learn more of the dialect, but more importantly, to practice the unspoken golden rule. Also, we got to learn some neat Spanish songs like "Alabare!" (O Praise The Lord!).

I also joined an Africentric Mass choir group per our church. One Sunday, after we all had done a great job with the closing song, "Come and Go With Me To My Father's House," the choir director told me that I "stood out in the choir that day!" As pride settled in on me and I wanted to know what I'd done well, his humbling and light-hearted response to my questioning was, "Look at your skin!"

So in light of President Obama's call for us to look beyond any boundaries that keep us from learning more about each other and our Maker, here are some lyrics from DC Talk's "Colored People" song that help us to see "skin deep:"

Pardon me, your epidermis is showing, sir
I couldn't help but note your shade of melanin
I tip my hat to the colorful arrangement
Cause I see the beauty in the tones of our skin

Keith John Paul Horcasitas, LCSW, MHA