Day 6: You are Welcome

For those of us living in a culture of autopilot, “you’re welcome” is the scripted response to “thank you.” If “you’re welcome” is in fact not preceded by “thank you,” it is usually a sarcastic jab at someone who has behaved rudely.

Although I like to use it as a greeting for whenever I enter a room, so as to head off the adoring masses.

(I forget that self deprecation doesn’t translate well over the internet. I promise I’m joking.)

In the world that I live in, it’s rare that I stop and examine exactly what it means when I say “you’re welcome.” More than a polite turn of phrase, by telling someone they are welcome after they have thanked me, I am telling them that whatever I have done for them, however I have given them a reason to be thankful, they are entitled to it and so much more. To tell someone that they are welcome to what I have to offer is truly a monumental gift, one that (if I’m being honest) I don’t always intend to give. To be a genuinely welcoming person is to sacrifice much, sometimes for people I don’t know, sometimes for people who are not actually thankful. I have to admit, when it comes to people I’ve never met, or am only meeting for the first time, I don’t always feel so gracious.

The first time I heard someone say to me “you are welcome” in Zambia, I was unable to process it. I believe my train of thought went something like this: 1. Are they joking? 2. Did I do something offensive? 3. Oh, they’re saying welcome to Zambia. That’s what people say.

Why the concept of true welcome is on some level foreign to me, I don’t know. Despite my earlier assessment of my deeply-rooted selfishness, I do work very hard to be a welcoming person. When prospective students would visit the choir at GU, I would smile and learn names and ask questions in an attempt to get to know them. It seems almost every week there’s someone who wants to join my church choir, and as a section leader it’s my job to make them feel welcome, to answer questions, to make sure they get a choir robe that pseudo-fits and generally set them at ease about the way things go on any given Sunday. I’m a card-carrying member of the welcome committee. I am someone who has, in the past, felt keenly what it is to be unwelcome, and I strive to make sure that people who enter my bubble never have to deal with that feeling. But despite all of this, “welcome” is a concept that often eludes my understanding.

And so, when we arrived in Lusaka and were greeted over and over by the phrase “you are welcome,” I nodded and smiled and didn’t feel particularly welcome. We met new people, learned names and quickly forgot many of them due to the sheer volume of new information coming at us at all times, and were assured over and over that we were welcome to the city, to each school, each meal, each experience. And I went to sleep each night feeling exhausted, far from home, and not necessarily welcome.

The first true glimmer of understanding I experienced happened as I was walking toward the bus after lunch with the Sacred Heart choir. Sonia, the choir’s director, called out to me before I could leave the yard. She took my hand, shared many kind words with me (that are mine alone to treasure, thank you all the same my lovely blog friends), and gave me a gift- a bracelet, multi-colored with strands of haphazard rocks, completely beautiful and totally unexpected. I was stunned, and could only say “thank you,” and in that moment I briefly understood the depth of what “you are welcome” can truly mean.

The moment where it sunk in in a deeper way happened when we finally reached the Chikuni Mission, our home base for the next few days. We unloaded the bus after a slow and bumpy ride winding through the mission, and were greeted by singing and dancing. Some of the men and women who live and work there presented us with a song of welcome and tirelessly encouraged us to dance- an endeavor that meets with varying degrees of success, depending on how long we’ve been traveling and how many times we’ve already been asked to dance that day. Yvonne, who coordinates visitors at the community center and is generally a super hero, gave a short speech. Again, the words “you are welcome.” I looked at the faces of the people around me- the friends who have been there with me for four years or one, the mentors, the little sisters and brothers, the people who stood before us all in Zambian clothes singing Zambian songs- and something occurred to me for the first time since I boarded the plane in Spokane almost a week ago.

Gifts can be given and still not received. Love can be poured out and wash over unreceptive hearts. Phrases like “you’re welcome” can be meant and not felt. But that doesn’t diminish the welcome. It might confuse me and be completely foreign, but a person that I have never met who has lived a completely different life than I have can open their arms and their heart to me and welcome me in as an old friend, a dear child. It is my choice, my responsibility, to receive that welcome or not. I am the one who decides to live into that generosity with abandon, or to withhold my heart because I am used to living in a world where “welcome” is just what we say.

I hope, for my sake and for the sake of the world around me, that I choose to be welcome.

-Amanda Rood, alto, Class of 2017 (finally)

P.S. James, if you are reading this: very very very very very very very very very.