Beyond Difference - Traits for Change

Beyond Difference - Traits for Change

Getting beyond difference is not an easy task, though. There are powerful forces at work, keeping us hung up in this notion of complexity. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “I don’t give a figs leaf about simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Clearly, Holmes, like so many other great thinkers, knew that achieving simplicity is not an easy thing. He realized that the simple notion of justice is often lost in the complexity of the law. Ghandi, King, and others have written about and reflected on this theme, as well. Most of us can’t even understand the question.

So where do we start? How do we come to identify the key elements that are the spring board to getting us beyond difference? As I look around and talked to many different people, I began to identify a number of important variables. One book, shared values for a troubled world, (Kidder, 1994) offered eight interesting notions. These are:

Love
Unity
Truthfulness
Tolerance
Fairness
Responsibility
Freedom
Respect

Other authors (Bennett, 1994; Covey, 1989) explores some of these and a variety of other virtues and values essential to a strong character. All of these are important works and wroth looking at. For me, however, I have woven the following five variables as seminal to getting beyond difference. These are:

Kindness
Hospitality
Generosity
Compassion
Forgiveness

To this end, consider some spiritual traits that can help us get beyond difference. They are simple and easy to relate to. In fact, for most of us they are things we do or have done, but have not applied to all situations. Know as you look these over, that I am not trying to preach or convert. It’s just that as I have wrestled with attempting to get beyond difference, I have tried the intellectual route only to be disappointed by what I found. The more I searched for a clinical formula to help people become included, the more I seemed to be polarized by the very process. This failure and frustration has now led me down a different path. It’s almost as if I have been reunited with the most basic elements and in these, I now see hope for an answer.

Recognize too, that although these traits all have a spiritual flavor to them, I use the term spiritual with a little “s.” In fact, a good way to couch this entire section is under the heading “secular spiritualism.” It’s not about converting people or proselytizing. Indeed, this discussion is purely secular. We each need to consider theology in our own way. I am convinced, however, that all these traits have a spiritual link in that they all deal with the stuff of relationships and how we position ourselves in this universe. They are about inclusion.

Over the years, I have become increasingly interested in spirituality – what it means, how it affects us as people. As my awareness has grown, I have become amazed at how often I find references to spirituality in readings and literature. Einstein (1956), in his more reflective writings has firmly acknowledged spirituality has key. He started, “All of science is but a blunt instrument if it does not have behind it a living spirit.”

Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan (1992), both well known scientists state:
If the universe really were made for us, if there really is a benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient God, then science has done something cruel and heartless, whose chief virtue would perhaps be a testing of our ancient faiths. (p. 413)

Indeed, many of the esteemed scientist, past and present, acknowledge the spiritual side of the ledger. A recent review of self-esteem, conducted in California, suggested that spirituality refers to experiencing ourselves in relationship to the world and concept.

So join me now as we turn attention to some key traits that combat the negative residue that surrounds difference. If more of the elements of these traits were in play today, we could, as a society, get beyond difference!