This week has been spent in a program called Visions. It was held at work, but I did very little accounting type work during the week. The program began at 9 am each morning and ended around 4:30 pm. I had received many accounts of the program from numerous others at work who had already participated in it, so I went into it with lots of preconceived ideas as to what to expect. Turned out not to be anything like I expected.

Maybe it had to do with the group of people that I wound up with. Who knows. However, it turned out to be a really good opportunity to examine one’s thoughts about others, some of whom were very much like me and some of whom were totally different. Since one of the tenets of the program is total confidentiality, I don’t feel comfortable writing about any of the other participants nor about some of the things that were discussed.

There were 12 of us–6 employees from All Saints and 6 who worked in many other areas and also happened to be parishioners at All Saints. I made a number of new friends and feel much closer to those that I work with.

A few months after Mike’s death I joined a grief therapy group sponsored by Hospice of Pasadena. When the organized program ended, most of us couldn’t bring ourselves to just break away from the group, so we continued to meet and stay in contact for close to a year. I went away from this program feeling the same thing will happen as everyone asked for email addresses of all the others and no one was ready to say goodbye and have it be final.

I expected this program to be all about straightforward racial prejudice, focusing on me being the bad guy because I am white. Instead I came away recognizing how everyone, no matter what their ethnicity, harbors some sort of prejudice against others. And I was able to learn about many of the problems that come with being black, asian, biracial, and handicapped as well as being Jewish and Catholic.

I also learned about prejudices in the workplace–and not just racial. Why is it we now “require” everyone to have a degree? There are many good people out there with great skills and experience who don’t have a degree. I plan to address this issue with the HR person at work next week since we currently have two openings for administrative assistants where we are requiring a degree that I believe is unnecessary. We’ll see what happens.

I am totally exhausted after a week of such intense thought and dialogue. Thank God the program ended on a Friday and I have the weekend to rest up. Don’t know what I’m going to do this weekend…maybe spreading mulch over all the newly planted flowerbeds, maybe a bit of inside cleaning, maybe just vegging out. The temps are supposed to be in the mid-90’s, so may wind up doing something in one of the rooms with a/c. Just grateful I have nothing specific that I have to do.