Diversity

This is part of a group of works on social justice and is a self published group of writings by Sandra Joyce.  

It is similar to a blog but organized like different webpages right now as it is in it's beginning stages.   

This particular work has a strong religious component.

“Diversity In Our Paths To God's Will” by Sandra Joyce 4/9/2022

Why should all Christian’s encourage diversity?  Because diversity seems to be God’s will.

Good has a way of making all things better

Imperfection has a way of making all things ill

The improvement of all things is dependent on humanities study of Good’s way (which as a Christian I call God’s plan for me) vs. Imperfections way (...path to destruction)

But God’s way for me, may be different than God’s way for someone else.

Most people who have sought out God have come to the idea that we should try not to hurt each other (golden rule, Hippocratic oath etc.) but they often fail to see we should also try not to stand in the way of another person's path to God, because of our own short sightedness (an imperfection). As a Christian I know that if something I do causes another man to stubble off God’s path for him then I am not really on my good path.  But imperfection keeps me from being able to seek God’s path for me at all times. 

If I’m driving along on the highway and I have the right of way but another car who is doing the wrong thing is in the road, should I hit that car?  No.  I would now no longer be in the right of way because I shouldn’t sideswipe another car, if I can avoid it.  But what about that Guy who is in the wrong?  I might be very mad at him.  I believe he is in the wrong.  How many of us believe he is in the wrong?  But what if he is following his path to God and a small child is in the road and he sees me barreling forward only thinking of myself today and that is why he puts his car in my path.  Which of us now is in the wrong?  Probably both of us.  He probably could have picked up the child to get it out of the road but perhaps the child had been hit by something bad and he knew not to move it or its neck would break.  Then actually, he turns out to be doing the best thing he can do for the situation.  What a disaster it could be if I let my anger and short sightedness delay applying my break.  

Still, before we get into someone’s path, let’s consider that we don’t know the urgency of their trip either.  We don’t know what God has planned for them.

Our conscience is God’s way of speaking to us.  I call it the Holy Spirit’s way of speaking to us.

Therefore, each of us should seek the equality and justice we feel in our heart… in our conscience.

Our feelings do not come from our heart muscle but from a figurative heart that’s more like a conscience.  Our feelings come from our mind and the rest of the central nervous system.  Our mind may actually start in our gut.  We have a remarkable system within our bodies of nerves which bring us all of the knowledge we can have because the nerves carry our senses to us.  Without nerves we could not see… touch… feel.  We could not interact with the world or know anything.  Even a person without sight (maybe missing the proper use of their optic nerve) a blind person is usually still blessed with other senses and can compensate and learn to stay on a good path.  We have all heard the term, “Go with your Gut” and it means the same basically as “follow your heart.”  As a Christian I say it means, follow God’s path for yourself… follow the holy spirit’s guidance.

When we each follow our own path to good things, that is diversity.

Nature:

Nature has a way of encouraging diversity.  God made nature in perfection so nature when left alone follows God’s will.

Mankind has a way of destroying nature over time.  Man does this alone out of short sightedness and ignorance.  The bible says that God will bring to ruin all those ruining the earth… I don’t think it specifically says when?  Maybe he will do it all at once at the end of the time of days? Maybe he does it (did it before we were ever born) by creating nature as it is and letting nature run its course?  Maybe that causes holes in the ozone layer that harm us?  Maybe that brings worse and worse storms as we are careless with nature? I don’t know.  

Some people have said I didn’t know it was wrong so It’s not my fault. I say bad stuff happens when we get off of God’s path for us and he has created a path for each of us for good. And sometimes we don’t really know what’s right or wrong. If we are trying to follow God I hope that is ok.

I once did a highway cleanup with a church youth group and the kid’s learned a little about the environment and the impact they could have for good.  A few weeks later, a Girl named Katie who was on the cleanup came to youth group and said: “Guess what? I don’t throw trash out the car window any more!” Now, Katie was really proud of this accomplishment.  I was like dumbfounded.  Katie was a very smart teenager. I had assumed it was bad bad people doing this destructive stuff and I probably was muttering as we cleaned up the highway “who does this stuff” and I was told later that the kids who were less naïve than I was at the time and knew more about it since they had seen different people do it all the time were laughing at me. Maybe sometimes I’m in my own world too much.  Disheartened: I didn’t want to stifle the lesson for the whole youth group or make Katie feel bad and say what I first wanted to say so I said.  “Wow Katie, I’m so excited to hear that” Katie explained to the group that she never knew it mattered. Trash like hamburger wrappers are biodegradable. She explained she had learned this in school. We didn’t know a small layer of plastic or chemical was often used to make that paper last a very long time and be durable enough to hold a messy burger. See, we had gotten to talk about how things could get so bad over time on our fair highway and one of the parents had told us about plastic and how it lasts and is strong, and told us the little trick we didn’t know about how hamburger wrappers are often strengthened by something less degradable as a coating.  Most of us thought paper just went away and started looking at paper vs plastic a little differently.  Then Katie said my favorite thing she said;  “I didn’t know we were going to have to spend our whole day cleaning it up instead of hanging out like we usually do.”  There… We learned something because it affected us directly.

Intelligent Corporate leaders have said: I had no idea putting our company's waste in piles on our own land would make poison leech into the ground, contaminating groundwater.  They didn’t know that groundwater was going to follow a path a hundred miles and contaminate more water. We don’t often contemplate that water is a major building block within the human body and in all of nature.  It’s important.  But we can’t think about and know everything.  No. Only God can do that.

Nature has a way of encouraging diversity.

Why are there so many different flowers? Different flowers serve different purposes. Nature is a system that works together as a large network of systems.  Some flowers feed one type of animal.  The butterfly bush grows like weeds sometimes.  That bush feeds a variety of birds and insects.  When something feeds a lot of different things, it sometimes tends to also grow in a variety of places.  I don’t think that is a coincidence.  I think it is by design.  But also, it could just be the nature of nature… the nature of nature by design.  

Then where the soil is inhospitable for the butterfly bush, like in the desert, there are other plants that thrive in that soil.  And remarkably the same birds and insects who thrive on the butterfly bush can get what they need as they migrate across the earth while they are in the desert, from desert plants like cactuses.  The system of nature is so complex, but it is diverse because that is what it needs to be for everything to survive.  Diversity is needed for diversity.

I try to remember to praise God for diversity in nature every day.

What about people.  Where I thrive, does my brother thrive?  What is good for me, is it good for my brother?  I’m prediabetic and if I have too many carbs I will start to get sluggish and sick.  I personally also tend to gain weight when I eat too many carbs instead of a different balance for me that is lower in carbs.  A healthy marathon runner may need carbs to get through the day though.  Carbohydrates are important nutrients, things we need for our bodies to make energy quickly, things like bread, pasta… They don’t need to be processed as much so they are ready to be energy fast when they enter our bodies which is why someone doing a lot of work right now, needs more of them. Even many fruits and vegetables and beans have enough carbohydrates for the average lifestyle that people never need to eat bread and pasta if they are eating many different nutritious foods. Variety in foods… diversity and balance in food, is what truly creates healthy bodies.  And you can be thin and have a heart attack or get sick.  Being thin is not the only sign to look for to measure health.  Health is an overall thing.  I am overweight, yet healthier than some thin people.  Some people’s health issues will cause them to die tomorrow.  I might have a while longer… perhaps than someone who will have a heart attack tomorrow.

So, I am prediabetic and overweight.  When I see how healthy the marathon runner is and I watch him eat a lot of carbohydrates, should I assume if I eat that way I will be healthy?  Should I eat my Wheaties? That is what so many of us do when we look at the world though.  We fail to really examine ourselves and our specific needs for what we need to do right now, but see what is being done around us and do what is being done around us by others.

Diversity is important.  Understanding that my path to health… to good things… to happiness and to God is different from any other person on this beautiful planet, is a key element to true happiness.  I am beautiful as each of you are, whenever I am following God’s path for me.  Let’s work to create a system where we don’t keep running into one another.