In a recent Sunday service, I wrote this question down which I think either Rev. Nancy or Sherree shared in a reading or reflection: When we are a diverse group, what do we win?
My mind began to flood with all of the people, acquaintances, students, colleagues, friends, strangers, family and loves in my life who represent humanity in ways that I do not. Those ways of humanity are about gender identity, skin tone, cultural origins, music, art of all kinds, religion, politics, age, socio-economics, education, language, sexual orientation, physical abilities, mental and emotional configurations, geographical location, foods–how they are prepared, what is eaten and how they are eaten– and probably quite a few more.
Every single one of them becomes for me a portal into a deeper understanding of what it means to be human on this planet at this time. They bring to me, and I hope that I bring to them, a richer understanding of who we are and how we are as human beings. Because, for me, spirituality is deeply rooted in how we make meaningful connections, I can say that the variety and differences of human beings I cherish in my life are central to my spiritual path. They are, to say it again, portals into deep meaning and connection for me. I would be a different (and I am clear, poorer) person without them.
Asking about what we win from a diversity of people in our lives requires the other end of that question: what do we lose without that rich variety of humanity in our lives? The short answer is that we lose access to the depths of human experience that wisdom, love and truth require for us as a species to progress. As individuals we lose. As communities we lose. As states and as nations, we lose when the variety of humanity is not present (accidental) or excluded (intentional).
A meeting, for example, of Russian and US leaders which excludes Ukrainian and European Union leaders, to discuss the end of the Russian war against Ukraine is a meeting cut off from the wealth of human ideas, solutions and creativity. What comes from it will be shallow, blinded by what it cannot know or understand, and likely dangerous. That makes us all losers.
I can’t order a different kind of meeting of world leaders. I can make choices about how I open myself to human beings who represent humanity differently than I do–and open my heart and mind to what they offer to me, what they can teach me about being human. Any time one of us does that, we all win.
~Bob Patrick
