Interculturality: Looking Below the Surface
The image of an iceberg is often used to illustrate how much of cultures, contexts, and life situations are below the surface—that is, about 90%. Sincere attempts to acknowledge, understand, appreciate and bridge the differences among nationalities, ethnicities, “races”, generations, genders, personalities, and economic/social classes requires looking under the “water level.” That area can seem to be unclear, overly complex, and even contradictory at first, whether we are looking at our own “world,” but especially when plunging into the depths of the “world” of the “other.” And yet as Catholics and as missionaries, we believe that God’s grace and life can be discovered “in the depths” of those “worlds” of meaning, order and identity.