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Wednesday 1 August 2007

Fear of Difference

Is difference Biblical?

Is difference being able to worship the many aspects of God through the freedom to find our own spiritual rhythm?

Is Holism the answer to being able to express the Christian faith through Nature?

I see difference in Nature all around me - randomness, shapes, movement, instability and diversity. But man introduces sameness - same cars, houses, roads, wheat fields, golf courses etc. All are an attempt to control the many of humanity. With people wanting individualilty we all buy into the desire for the same needs of a car, house, DVD player etc. We become homogenous, yet we yearn from freedom and individuality. The world has too many people all chasing the capiltalist dream, a utopia that consumerism will solve. Where is our "self", our individuality, our relationship with the Divine - with the Other? How can you break out? Not easily if you are trapped in the world of the mortgage and work. Yet even freedom is scorned. Difference creates culture wars and insecurity - we must be brought together. People fight over differences - they want security, or they feel threatened. Where is our freedom to be different?

Age, shopping, culture, TV, work, home: they all compartmentalise us - because that is how we have to shape life. Does Nature do that? Perhaps so, even small ecosystems have control, micro-habitats, niche specific flora and fauna. Everything needs some sort of boundary to survive. Even the air we breath is confined to our atmosphere. But then it goes back to how do you perceive things outside your boundary, habitat, culture, religion. Threat, insecurity or a welcome diversity of knowledge, belief, wisdom and understanding?

Can we pick and choose? A bit of this and a bit of that? Can Holism really be embraced? We have to think of our own survival and security - that overrides everything we do. Survive. So we cannot entirely embrace other things, only what is within acceptable boundaries. The outside becomes our fear. We become fearful of other beliefs.

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