Caution and Conversation: A Personal Reflection

II.Reflect:3.Intrapersonal Reflection: While looking at this person and observing his way of leaning with his back against the wall, his face was quite expressionless at first but within no time, his presence made me suspect him. I felt that I should not talk to him myself and to keep myself in safe position because I was volunteering at the front desk, I thought it would be best to ask help from Richard that he should talk to him instead of me. Later, when this grey haired fellow came and stood close to the welcome desk, I decided I should talk to him. I talked to him but when he chose not tell me his name and asked me instead where I was from, I hesitated telling him. I was cautious and wanted not to reveal my information before I saw myself in any kind of trouble. He heard me say my name and also saw my name tag and the spellings but I did not want

Systemic Reflection: Considering Social Realities: There was stress in the words of this grey headed man “next time,” which indicated that either he was not ready to share information about himself only because he had interacted with me for the first time, or that he demonstrated throwing an arrow of blame at me for being untrustworthy. He knew I did not come from the U.S. culture which he expressed through his words “India.” This indicated he had a vague idea of my ethnic identity and conveyed he did not want to trust a person from another country or race. I wondered that might be a possibility or that he assumed I also belonged to a country that is infamous for terrorism. He had read my name tag that stated “Pastoral Intern” but it made me wonder if his reason of abrupt conversation was that he might question himself if I were a new Christian who did not know much about Christianity. This assumption was based on my past personal experience when many Vineyard parishioners had asked me if I accepted Christ in the U.S or if I came from a Christian family and how many generations in my family Christianity