Sarah Lutterodt’s eventful life spans multiple cultures — Black/White, U.S./British, Western/African, academia/business — and her experiences have opened her eyes to the assumptions and attitudes, deeply rooted in childhood, that too often separate people from one another.
“No one has the capacity to live in an unboundaried world,” Lutterodt writes in her new book, “Worlds Apart: A Memoir of Uncertain Belonging.”
“The scale is too vast, our need for security too great,” she adds. “But we can live with more awareness of our blinders and with compassion for those in other worlds.”
“Worlds Apart” invites readers to join Lutterodt on her journey, from a sheltered post-war childhood on a farm in southern England to her life-changing years teaching university in Ghana, followed by her challenging immersion in the rough and tumble of the U.S. business world.
BIRACIAL FAMILY
With her husband, a Ghanaian mathematician, she struggles to find a place for her biracial family in a 1980s United States that isn’t always welcoming.
In retirement, Lutterodt lives between two worlds: a newly experienced Ghana and a United States for whom Africa too often remains the “dark continent.”
We can live with more awareness of our blinders and with compassion for those in other worlds.
While the memoir tells stories from each chapter of Lutterodt’s life, the underlying themes are of identity and belonging, and the joys and challenges in living at the interface between different cultures — recognizing boundaries to be navigated while seeking to build bridges of understanding.
In reflecting on her life’s journey, Lutterodt has drawn inspiration from the teachings of the renowned Franciscan friar Richard Rohr. Echoing the title of his seminal work, “Everything Belongs,” she concludes: “I am grateful to have experienced moments when a boundary that separates my life from others has become porous, illuminated by the bonds of our common humanity.”
“Worlds Apart: a Memoir of Uncertain Belonging” is available on Amazon.
