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Today's
Meditation:
One of the most obvious elements of this world that we
live in is the diversity that exists in abundance:
diversity in colors, in shapes, in environments, even in
ways that we process oxygen and things that we're able to
eat. Even just among human beings, our diversity is
incredible. We have differences in skin color,
language, culture, traditions, ways of life, attitudes,
and so much more. Unfortunately, though, somewhere
along the line our fears took over our perspective, and
many of us view these differences as threats rather than
as wonderful additions to the human family.
Because of those fears, humans have done their best to subjugate
people who are "different" than we are. We
do this along racial lines, along gender lines, along
lines of sexual orientation. We try to subjugate
people because of age, because of place of origin, because
of languages, because of religion.
But what happened to "live and let live"?
And even more than that, what happened to allowing someone
else to enrich our lives due to their differences, rather
than avoiding contact with them due to our fears?
The diversity of the world is an amazing source of
knowledge, wisdom, and beauty, but many of us choose to
reject it in order to stay "safe" and
"comfortable" in our own little worlds.
And many of us choose even to try to diminish the beauty
and importance of others because we feel if we do so, the
"threat" that they represent diminishes, too.
But this simply isn't true. We don't diminish others
at all--rather, we impoverish ourselves because of our
lack of the broad perspective that we could have if we
were to embrace others who aren't "like
us." We lost the beauty of the tapestry that
includes thread of many different colors and textures, in
favor of one that is flat and often monochromatic.
And while it is possible to create a fairly attractive
design using shades of just one color, the tapestries that
we create with many varied colors that complement each
other are richer, deeper, and much more beautiful.
So why do we choose to limit the threads that we use?
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