Welcoming the Vast Human Diversity
November 4, 2010
7:37 p.m. CST
Updated November 6, 2010 @ 7:54 p.m. CST
A dear friend of mine, Michka Grant (a.k.a. @themoodyrat on Twitter), wrote an entry to his blog today about the importance of being inclusive towards those we find intersecting with our lives, and accepting and loving them. After a conversation with him about his blog post, he credited me with inspiring him. He added a comment to his blog to reflect a remark of mine.
His blog post and our conversation reminded me of a conversation I once had with my daughter several years ago. I heard her parrot something I had said many years before that. I had grown since she had heard me say those things and I knew it needed to be corrected. She was talking about differences in races.
The statement she made while repeating what I said to her years earlier was that being born of another race was not that person's fault. They did not choose to be born that color.
I deeply regret ever making that statement, to her or anyone else. This is why:
Saying that it is not that person's fault implies two things: 1) that SOMEONE has committed some fault in making someone of a different race and of course, that being God, 2) that being of a different race IS a fault, albeit someone else's, and 3) that there is something seriously wrong with anyone who would have chosen to be of a different race.
What toilet did I have my head in?
Over the years I have come to realize that glorious differences exist in many arenas: language, clothing styles, hair styles, jewelry preferences, hair color, religious beliefs, sexuality, and the list goes on and on.
In the scientific world, there is a never-ending supply of new species and geneses being discovered, and a never-ending search to deliberately discover them.
But among humans, we tend to fear, and by extension, hate, differences in other humans different from ourselves. Our respective cultures teach us that conformity is a value we truly need to hold to valiantly and tenaciously.
How can we find ourselves so enriched by the vast abundance of differences in other creatures, and not by the vast abundance of differences within other humans?
Rather, I believe we should just as diligently
welcome, embrace and search out the differences of those we meet and
learn from them and love them, not treating their differences as sins
but as opportunities to grow, learn from and become wiser in the
vastness of God.
