Personal Views On Diversity

Personal Views I completely agree with Vanier and his views on diversity. I do believe that if we are able to transcend ourselves and begin to look at others the way God views them, as a creation in his likeness, we will be transformed internally. I have found complete freedom in my life when I have extended only love for other human beings and forced the fears and prejudices out of my mind and actions. I will say that this can be an extremely difficult thing to do, it is seemingly against our very nature, and can be very difficult to accomplish. However, if we persist it becomes easier and even preferable. I liken it to the Awareness Test video that we watched in class. It is easy to be so distracted by what we think is the focus, that …show more content…
I have had a very diverse set of experiences in my life that will be part of who I am as a social worker. However, books like Encounter the Other are great reminders of how challenging it can be to deal with people outside of our comfort levels. It reminds us that we all need the desire to handle others more appropriately before we can be transformed by God’s spirit and that the action of simply wanting to change our approach can be enough for God to grant us his insight. This book also reminds us that there is hope for transformation. Just because we have always acted a certain way when handling people, does not mean that we cannot change future interactions. We have the ability to see people in the likeness of God. We have the potential for growth and the potential to utilize love. And in this respect, this book was a great read for a future social worker. It reminded me how I need to handle each and every person I interact with in my future field of work. It reminded me that sometimes human nature will rise up and we lose the desire to operate out of love. This can be especially true when working with compromised populations of people. I see this in my internship at CPS. I watch as the social workers continually struggle to engage their clients with love; especially those clients who continually put their own children in jeopardy. However, we are called by God to love everyone; even the …show more content…
I will say that the style of writing and use of language was difficult for me to appreciate. However, I do appreciate Vanier’s overall message. He addressed many relevant issues that Christian social workers face daily in their line of work. He addresses fear, hate, and prejudice. He reminds us that every human being alive struggles with these notions. The only thing that separates us as Christians is the desire to act out of love when dealing with people. He emphasizes repeatedly how God will grant us insight to see human beings the way he sees them. Vanier also teaches us that all people want justice, mercy, and truth to prevail. As a result, we only find peace when we allow those attributes to be the forefront of our every action. This is a great reminder to how human nature works and brings to light why we are so far out of balance in the world. If we would only act in the way God has designed us to act, we would all find peace within ourselves and the world would be a much, much better place to