Diversity in Community

Often I think about the term “community” and wonder what that really means in the day to day living of our lives. I’m the kind of person who likes to reflect deeply on all angles before I commit to a ride on the bandwagon. What does it look like to be part of a community that truly celebrates diversity? I have been on a journey in the last few years of learning what it looks like to be me within we. I know that the word diversity may be frightening to some, but it need not be the case. Diversity does not mean that you have to lose your identity or your values to become part of some mindless entity. Personally I think it has to do more with learning what it means for you to be “you” and me to be “me” as together we learn to be “we” (thank you Danny Silk for this definition).

Susan Cain states that “we like to think that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of individual.” I am convinced that having a genuine value for individuality and diversity being expressed in community requires (intentional) hard and courageous work. Hard, because it often involves going against the cultural grain. And courageous, because it usually involves taking a good look within.

I’ve heard it said that if you are insecure in yourself, you will usually seek to distance yourself from those who are different from you. Their strengths are not cause for celebration. Instead they serve to remind you of your weaknesses. So we partition ourselves into the relative safety of sameness, and diversity remains beautiful from a distance.

The mantra of this mindset is you will never be one of us if you are too different. You must be the same to belong. Otherwise you will become … them. And no one wants to become THEM.

Division is one of the offspring of insecurity. False humility isn’t so humble.

May I suggest another approach? Learn to value who you are. Make room for personal development instead of personal condemnation. Make time to do what you love. In the ways and spaces that you love. Find your happy place. And then also make time to be stretched by others. Seek to learn from others.To understand others, in the same way you long to be understood. In doing so, we are more able to create an ebb and flow of giving and receiving.

If you value you, then you will find it mush easier to value others.

As a wise person once said; love your neighbor as yourself. Truthfully to genuinely love another requires first loving yourself.

I love the analogy of community as being likened to the human body. Each part is diverse in look and role and yet each serves in the function of helping the body to be the body. The Apostle Paul described it this way:

Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. (1 Corinthians 12:14-20)

A body that would only consist of one part wouldn’t be considered a body, but simply a body part.  A body part can’t really live on its own, hanging out by itself. That wouldn’t be healthy. And yet there are times when we happily dissect human community into bits and pieces, separating from one other. At times we may even call it good. Thank goodness “they” are there and “we” are here. Now I am not referring to “there” and “here” in terms of nations or continents. Two people could be standing right next to each other and yet have a chasm of distance between them. May I be so bold to suggest that this body called community needs a doctor. Someone who specialises in reconciling the distance. A healer to stitch up the broken wounds and mend the fractured bones.

There are many examples I could use; from gender, to race, to socio-economic status, to political affiliation etc. But I’ll offer just one example or now. I know that there are those who feel that they may be considered “too much”. For years, I was so busy feeling “too little”, I hadn’t realized there were so many struggling this way. In my insecurity, their volume reminded me of my (perceived) lack. That others might perceive me as too quiet. The smaller the voice, the smaller the personality.

I want to say to those that have ever felt too much, that no. You are not too much. You are perfectly imperfectly you. And I am perfectly imperfectly me. And that’s okay. I know that now. I accept that now.

We are different.  We need it to be that way. God made it that way. We need to bring diversity into our collective embrace to fully realize what community can be.