Differentness into Oneness

 

There seems to be two, polarised, reactions when encountering ‘otherness’.  For the eager traveller, or the cook who is constantly searching for new flavours, ‘otherness’ is a joy.  Yet for those who feel confused or undermined by differences in race, colour, language, and culture, ‘otherness’ becomes a threat.  After all, it’s the easiest thing in the world to view mine as the ‘standard’ context or the ‘normal’ way of being.

Last Saturday, whilst on a family history detective walk, we came across this school mural in Paddington.  We both, it seems, have past relatives who lived near there, next to Little Venice with its wonderful canals and waterways.  We had lunch outside the church at which my relatives got married one day in 1904, and Rachel’s the next.  There they are, one after the other, in the marriage register.  But…I digress!

Whilst exploring we stumbled upon this picture which greets primary school children in Paddington every day.  A picture displaying a diverse, multi-ethnic group of youngsters and one that probably reflects the school’s demographic.  This is a picture, and I suspect this is also a school, that celebrates ‘different-ness’ even as it values ‘common-ness’.  Because, surely, one can grow into the other.

I remember one evening at home, during my teenage years, having dinner around the family table.  I mentioned that I’d run into a friend of my parents whilst at the dentist.  When asked if we’d had a conversation I replied, with more than a tad of youthful arrogance, that we hadn’t talked much because it was clear we had different interests.  Well, my father, quite rightly, couldn’t let that pass and said that, maybe if I’d been more willing to have a chat, I might have discovered we had more in common that I realised.  It was a good and important lesson.  I wasn’t grateful for it at the time, but my father’s words mysteriously seem to have got wiser, as I have grown older!!

‘Different-ness’ may be the starting place and is regularly worth celebrating, yet scratch below the surface, listen, talk, explore stories together, and what we end up valuing is the ‘commonality’ that truly binds us together.

In the Christmas story which beckons us forward during these December days, both the shepherds and the Wise Men represent ‘different-ness’.  Yet, at the manger, kneeling before the Love that holds the universe together, we see a common humanity which, thankfully, draws us all in.

‘Different-ness’ leading to ‘Common-ness’.  A precious and necessary process in life and found in the story of that first Christmas.