For 13 years I have worked with Beyond Welfare (BW), a community-building organization that seeks to facilitate change through building community across our differences. We started with the intent of addressing poverty.We believed when people make friends across class and race lines, the lives of those in poverty and others are enriched. We also hoped that those with sufficient resources would come to see the systemic conditions that hold poverty in place and will want to do something to create a more just and equal community.

Indeed, over the years we have made a difference. BW has facilitated significant change in the lives of individuals, in systems and in the community.

We have come to define poverty as a lack of money, friends and meaning.

We have come to understand that all of us needs all of these to be OK.

We have figured out that everyone — no matter how “poor” in money or resources — has great gifts. That all of us, no matter how “rich,” have needs.

Our focus on poverty and welfare reform has grown to a commitment to inclusion — an open door of community for everyone regardless of race, class, age, ability, orientation and the other interesting differences among us as people. We gather for food and friendship.

People exchange wants, needs and offers, developing an economy of caring reciprocity that meets tangible and intangible needs for all involved.

Many people I know who care a lot about justice and peace tell me they only wish they had time to be involved in the community-building work of BW.

It has me thinking about how our busy lives keeps us separated from people who are different from us, holding isolation, difference, divisiveness and injustice in place. We work so hard and move so fast. I was blessed to connect with the inclusion movement around folks with disabilities in the U.K.

Here I met an amazing young woman named Marissa who lives with cerebral palsy. Her communication style is different from mine. She communicates with an alphabet board. An assistant helps her point to letters, spelling what she has to say.

While getting to know Marissa, I was being my busy self.

She wheeled herself over and got my attention. She spelled, “Lois! You are going to have to slow down if you want to be my friend!”

I count this admonition as one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.

I, like most, was raised with a model of charity that would place me as a generous, helpful person in relationship to Marissa.

In reality, I needed her. For years I had been looking for a good enough reason to slow down. In one simple moment, she gave it to me — “Be my friend.”

So slow down. Give yourself a gift.

 Smile.

 Say hello to a person who is different from you. Attend a BW community dinner on any Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at Collegiate Presbyterian Church, 159 N. Sheldon.

Make peace and justice by slowing down and making friends.

Lois Joy Smidt is the past Director of Beyond Welfare where she is now a volunteer member.