"Spiritual experiences aren't meant to be homogenous, only harmonious - not in unison, but in unity.
If all souls developed in cookie-cutter fashion, we would have spirituality by duplication rather than by waiting and transformation."
- Sue Monk Kidd (from her book, When the Heart Waits)
I really like this quote by Sue Monk Kidd. Too often we fall into the thinking that we have to be just like everyone else in order to have value or worth. My dad always told me, "It takes all kinds to make a world" and he was absolutely right. I think that if God had wanted us all to be the same, He would have made us that way.
Each of us has our own spiritual path to walk (and I'm talking spirituality here, not religion), and they are as individual as the people that are experiencing them. They are transforming in their own way. I find that even within a religious community the emphasis sometimes is placed too much on the programs, with less regard for the individuals whom the programs were designed to serve.
One of the first things I learned as a teacher in my religious community was that if I wanted to have an impact and be effective, I had to love those whom I served or taught. How can we love those we have been called to care for if we don't even know them as individual personalities? Too often snap judgments are made if the individual doesn't fit the "cookie cutter" mold of whatever perception or expectation that we have in our minds of what/whom the individual "should" be. When that individual doesn't "fit the mold" they are discarded or discounted as having less value or worth. God loves ALL of his children, not just those that "fit the mold". We are all products of our upbringing, our fears, our individual life experiences, our perceptions and our expectations - whether they are correct or not. We never know where people are or have been in their lives, only God knows that. We are not all "round pegs" fitting into "round holes". Some of us are square pegs, oval pegs, rectangular pegs that feel like we are being pushed to fit into "round holes", and that simply does not work well for any of us.
Each of us is unique, and we look at the world in our own unique way. God made us that way, with individual gifts, abilites, interests and talents, so that we would learn to use these abilities to work together to make a better "whole". After all, the "whole" is really only as good as the sum of it's parts. As life gets more complex we come to understand that we need each other and each other's talents and abilities more and more. However, if we never take the time to get to know what those are, then how can we use them for the greater good? We all make poor choices, or mistakes. We all have room for improvement and we all must walk - individually - the path that God has placed before us. No one walks the same path, feels the same feelings at the same time/way/place. I think we would all benefit if we try to remember this and tread a little lighter, show a little more compassion and kindness, and lift a hand to help each other a little more as we proceed on this journey we call life.
Heal the World (Michael Jackson)
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