The difference is normal!

 

When I watched an occasional ladies finger vegetable growing downward, I wondered about this variation. 

I looked around in the kitchen garden to see more of this variation. There were plants with both upward and downward growing patterns. 

What is not so common, is also real. 

I have had instances of having had to relate to people with different temperaments and attitudes. Sometimes I used to wonder why some people had wildly different opinions and are insistent on them. 

It was through a crisis in retionshiops with few friends, whom I had known for years, I got a first hand experience of the differences that divide and strain relationships. Sometimes strained relationships do not recover to the earlier profile, after differences became non- negotiable. 

As I have lived with a few instances of that nature, I have had experiences like the above sight, to accept the difference also as normal. The vegetable whether it grows upwards or downward, its value does not change!

The differences in temperament and attitudes are real and some are non negotiable differences. To accept the variation as normal frees us to relate without expectations to conform. 

I noticed in a campus that I recently visited, that the lighting of the campus consisted of vapour lamps, neon lights, fluorescent lights and regular lights. Each lamp was appropriately chosen to meet a specific need in one particular area. The diversity was essential to suit a need.

I am coming to a position when I feel comfortable to be myself and allow others to be themselves behaviourally and relationally. 

The Chinese eat in one way, the Japanese in another way, the British in a different way, the Indians different from all of these... Yet they all eat the food for pleasure and for nutrition. The way they eat is different, which is a non-issue. 

The temperament, attitude and behaviour therefore can also be different in a group, where people come from different backgrounds. But our humanity and humaneness are common. 

The twelve followers of Jesus of Nazareth, often referred to as disciples, had a discussion among themselves as to 'which one of them was the greatest' (Mark9:34)! Jesus responded: ' If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and savant of all' (v35). Taking a child, Jesus set him before the disciples and by taking him in His arms, Jesus affirmed the call to receive each other in a self giving way. Jesus was among as One who served, which He demonstrated on several occasions, the oft remembered event being Jesus washing of the feet of the disciples at the time of the Last supper. 

I am on this schooling journey, to believe and practice that behavioural or temperamental differences do not divide, but make a group colourful! 

To have this cognitive awareness translated into a day today practice is another journey ahead!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)