“Wherever two or three are gathered in my name… there is a difference of opinion.”
This little twist on the words of Christ make me chuckle, but also help me to contemplate on the mystery of creation. Every human being is the product of an encounter between other human beings, and usually in that process, the subsequent human being sees the world differently than the previous two. One is boring, two isn’t enough, three usually results, and none of them ever agree. Any sort of unity has a quality of an expansive synergy.
The laws of physics call for entropy, that is to say, matter always takes it most simplest form, but when human beings are involved, entropy goes out the window. The exact opposite occurs. Things seem to take their most complicated form.
And I think the ancient Hebrews understood that better than anyone. I say this because I often reflect on the overlooked intricacy of my favorite Psalm, recited by the ancient Hebrews. It is Psalm 62 and goes like this.
One thing I know
Two things I’ll tell you.
Power belongs to God
So too does kindness
And he renders to each according to their deeds.
Now if you read that psalm very carefully, you notice something important. It starts with the bold statement “One thing I know.” And immediately the psalmist contradicts himself. If he knows ONE thing, then why does he feel that he has the right to tell us TWO things?
Stop the presses! Let’s see what’s really going on. The psalmist tells us 1) Power belongs to God, 2) So too does kindness and 3) we will be judged by our deeds.
Why on God’s good Earth would somebody claim to know ONE thing, announce that he will tell us TWO, and then list THREE things?
In physics class we learned that “Nature abhors a vacuum.” But I think we could also say that “Nature abhors conformity.” Where there is one, it naturally expands in an ever unfolding Kaliope of change within unity. One needs two to have a relationship, and the relationship results in a third. Ever changing, ever constant. (I believe that is also what theologians refer to as the perichosis or “dance” of the Holy Trinity)
The current age of human self-understanding is a period of time in which we are becoming more and more aware of the phenomenon of plurality, the idea that there is more than one acceptable truth in the universe, the presence of seemingly different worldviews existing simultaneously. It is very threatening to many philosophers and moralists because of the tendency for plurality to be reduced to relativism in which there is no “right” or “wrong,” because what is true for you is not true for me.
But the more I contemplate the mystery of God as God has revealed Godself to humanity, the more I realize that plurality is not the denial of truth, but rather its offspring. The nature of truth is to take a multiplicity of forms that refract truth’s primate explosion into countless illuminations, much like a ray of light hitting a diamond.
I am reflecting on this as I leave Tanzania and enter Kenya. To mark my departure of Tanzania, I have created a Google Earth pictorial with all the parishes I visited in Tanzania. If you have downloaded Google Earth onto your computer, you can view the pictorial by clicking here.
Tanzania and Kenya serve as interesting models of plurality in the African landscape. Tanzania has over 120 tribes living within its borders, and Kenya has 42. The result of this multiplicity is not chaos, but stability. The presence of diversity is a challenge, but is a challenge in both countries that has brought unity rather than hostility. It is the countries of Africa that have only two tribes which experience the greatest unrest and violence. Kenya and Tanzania are peaceful and prosperous in comparison to countries such as Zimbabwe, Rwanda, or Sudan, where two tribes usually vie for control and power.
We know in a forest that nature prefers bio-diversity. The more diverse the population of a wilderness, the healthier each individual specimen remains. It is almost as nature prefers plurality. In fact, every example I have written in this blog, in the poet-wisdom of the Hebrews, in the Christian concept of God (Trinity), in the politics of healthy African tribalism (Tanzania and Kenya), and in the forest itself, the universe has a pattern… unity always seeks diversification, and through diversification, unity is achieved.
So what if we learn from this little dance of expansive possibility something about our own identity as religious people. What if we began to recognize that there will never be conformity in the Catholic Church. We need the conservative Opus Dei / Mother Angelica / Legionaries of Christ side of the Church to excite and energize the Church just as we need the liberal Call-To-Action / Anti-War / Social Justice groups to renew the mission.
Earlier on this pilgrimage, I met a priest who told me that Protestants need a strong Catholic Church in order to have something to protest against. What if Catholics need good Protestants in order to remind us what our core values really are? By our very being, we make each other healthier at our unique, divinely given charisms.
What if we start noticing that healthy, non-confrontational interaction between Buddhists, Muslims, and Catholics actually makes each of them better for who they are? What if the best way to describe the mystery of that which Christians call “God” is to have many religions trying to describe that mystery? What if that is what God intended by God’s very nature?
These are big questions to have while sitting on a propeller plane during a flight to Nairobi, but they make sense for me to ask as I fly over the boundaries of many different tribes present in both Tanzania and Kenya. Somehow, diversity is native to the people of this region. Of course, a great deal of their unity is caused by the government policies which mandated the use of one language to promote national, not tribal identity, but those same policies have failed to unite other parts of the world that experience less diversity.
So for myself, I know one thing, but I’ll go ahead and tell you two.
There is a God.
God created a very diverse world.
That diversity is exactly what makes us unified.