Diversity and Commonality

I look out at the scene of grass, bushes and trees in my backyard with the late day sun shining on different places, and I wonder how many greens do I see in this one little place? If I were painting this view, how many colours would I need to mix in with green (and which green would I use) to capture the multitude of greens – those in the shadow, those in the sun, those textured with spindly leaves or flowing in the wind, those that are fading, those that are new. I’m sure I would need thousands of different greens to make this one little patch look alive. And yet, whether they’re prickly and rigid or flowing and bushy, they’re all green, because they all have chlorophyll, the life-giving ingredient that transforms sunlight into green. Diversity and commonality.

I think of cultures. Despite the fact that we are all genetically the same, humans have created on this little planet vastly different cultures. Traditional indigenous cultures around the world see themselves as family members with trees, animals, mountains. As a result, they treat and relate to the trees, animals and mountains quite differently than we who grew up in the West do. They see the space around us as imbued with ancestors and spirits. They are relatives to the land and thus, one must pay attention to, revere, and learn from the land rather than see it as empty space that one may redesign for one’s own personal profit. As ethnobotanist, Wade Davis, writes about the Indians of the Amazon, “rivers are not just routes of communication, they are the veins of the earth, the link between the living and the dead, the paths along which ancestors travelled at the beginning of time.” (Wayfinders, p. 95) In Polynesia, there are navigators who – without using any tools other than the observation of waves and currents – can guide boats to islands they cannot see. Hunters in the Kalahari desert in Africa read the sand for clues to water, honey and animals.

A culture such as Hinduism sees life recycled into another being at the end of this life. As a result of that view, they see opportunities for ‘do overs’, and a diversity of different possibilities that is mind boggling. Not only does an individual have multiple lives in this tradition, but universes do as well. That is quite a different way of understanding life than a culture such as Islam or Christianity which sees this life as the one and only opportunity to get it right. And mind you, neither view is just a matter of beliefs, it’s really quite a different way of understanding and living reality. But as different as both ways are, humans in both cases recognize that our deaths inform our lives and that what we do with our lives has consequences. Diversity and commonality.

The rituals humans do – those markers for life events such as birth, adolescents, marriage, death – reflect the differences in cultural understanding of reality. The Jewish ritual of the Bar or Bat Mitzvah where a young person reads from the holy scripture is quite different than the scarification ritual in Papua New Guinea or a Hopi kiva experience in which a young man is put into an underground cave for a period of months to be reborn by mother earth. In the African country of Ghana the spirit of the dead person, who will still be an active ancestor in the community, is sent to the other side in a coffin resembling something they did in this life – perhaps a fish for a fisherman, a plane for an international business person or a shoe for a shoeshine boy. That is quite different than our way of dealing with a dead body here in the U.S. or in China. And yet, all cultures have rituals marking transition times: of initiation rites that bring young people into the larger community, marriage, death. All cultures have pilgrimages, physically challenging travel that combines spirit and land. The lessons to be learned from the rituals may be different. But the purpose is the same. Diversity and commonality.

Languages, religion and art all are examples of diversity and commonality. They use different vocabularies and grammars, different symbols and movements, different media and myths. But they all communicate the most intimate or passionate, the most inspiring or banal, the most emotional or analytical, of our human thoughts and feelings. We can express love and wisdom, hatred and cruelty with all three forms of human expression, and they will reflect different cultural values and different times. But as the writer in Ecclesiastes notes: “A generation comes, a generation goes, there’s nothing new under the sun.” There is always a longing in the human spirit for connection to something beyond ourselves, however we may express it. Diversity and commonality.

As a cultural anthropologist – both in my personal and professional life – I find the diversity and commonality of human life heartening, interesting, and vital to a multidimensional understanding of life. And I find the work and words of Wade Davis to be essential to everyone: “Every effort should be made…to understand the perspective of the other, to learn the way they perceive the world, and if at all possible, the very nature of their thoughts.” (Wayfinders, p. 70)

Furthermore, we better do it soon – as much of the diversity which makes this planet so interesting is being lost in so many ways! Not only in the biosphere but also in what Davis, calls the ethnosphere. He points out there are currently 7,000 languages spoken on the earth now. But more than 50% of them will disappear within the next 40-50 years. Globalization, hegemony, and cultural domination are destroying cultures as fast as forests in the Amazon. Communities once nestled in the integrity of their culture, are being ripped apart by industrialization which leaves them unmoored and poor in ways that didn’t exist before. Which is a shame as different cultures offer different solutions to life problems.

The different greens and the different textures in my backyard are what make it interesting and beautiful. The different cultures and realities in this world do the same.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Wade Davis’ book, The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World:

“Our [Western] way of life, inspired in so many ways, is not the paragon of humanity’s potential…Were societies to be ranked on the basis of technological prowess, the Western scientific experiment, radiant and brilliant, would no doubt come out on top. But if the criteria of excellence shifted, for example to the capacity to thrive in a truly sustainable manner, with a true reverence and appreciation for the earth, the Western paradigm would fail. If the imperatives driving the highest aspirations of our species were to be the power of faith, the reach of spiritual intuition, the philosophical generosity to recognize the varieties of religious longing, than our dogmatic conclusions would again be found wanting…the plight of diverse cultures is not a simple matter of nostalgia or even of human rights alone, but a serious issue of geopolitical stability and survival.” (pp. 195-196,198) .

REFLECTIONS ON REFLECTIONS

  (Author's note: This is a 'reprisal' of an entry I did a number of years ago, but still holds up.  I need to think a bit more before I do one on weddings!)
        
        It is now September.  Summer -- although it only officially ended two days ago -- already seems long ago.  If I were still at the beach or camping, would it still feel like summer?  Does it feel like summer when I laze in my backyard?  The answer is no.  The crickets at night sound different.  The breeze feels less like a reprieve from the heat and more like a gentle message from the winter reminding me of what’s to come.  The leaves on the trees have begun to change.  They’re still green but it’s a different green then summer green.  It’s not new, tender green, it’s a green that’s been around for awhile, older, experienced, dryer.  Do they know they will fade?  Do they know that soon they will change and die? The light is different too.  A duskier, huskier ripe heaviness of autumn light is beginning to slant and glow as it reflects off the trees and bushes. 

            I think it’s the light that has changed the most and changes me.  I feel like a plant leaning towards the sun.  My body wants to soak up as much sun-energy as I can to use during the light starved days of winter.  In some real ways that’s what summer does for us: stores energy.  People often complain that teachers – and students – are lucky because we get to take the summer off.  We are.  What they may not realize is how much we really need that time to recharge our psychic batteries.  Recreation time allows us to re-create ourselves so that we have the energy we need during the school year.  By June we are depleted and need that time again.  Justice Louis Brandeis said: "I can do 12 months of work in 11 months, but I can't do 12 months of work in 12 months."  He recognized, what wisdom traditions have long promoted and neuroscientists are beginning to understand: we humans need 'down time' in order to function effectively.

            Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath every seven days, does that on a weekly basis.  From Friday evening to Saturday evening we have a period of rest: a time set aside during which one is not supposed to work, run errands, get distracted by everyday life.  It’s a time for spiritual re-creation, for reflection like a spiritual summer every 7 days.  And, interestingly enough, it’s marked off at the beginning and the end by light: the light of candles.

            In a few weeks Jews will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the world.  It is a time set aside to celebrate the life force around us, to marvel and to reflect on the sweetness of life.  Just as the beginning of a new school year, when you are refreshed and rejuvenated is a good time to ponder on who we are and what is around us, so is Rosh HaShanah.

            A Hasidic rabbi, Nachman of Bratslau, wrote this following prayer in the late 1700’s:

           “Master of the universe, grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass – among all living things – and there may I be alone and enter into prayer, to talk to the One to whom I belong.  May I express there everything in my heart, and may all the foliage of the field – all grass, trees and plants – awake at my coming, to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of all growing things, which are made as one by their transcendent Source.”

            Students often ask me what I think G-d is.  My answer is I don't know.  But I believe I see reflections of G-d every day in every way.  It is in these changes of the seasons and the changes in a person.  That life-energy force that transformed a one-celled water creature into my baby, then into a boy who became a thinking, shaving teenager, and now into a mature responsible husband is an awesome power.  One day, hopefully, that transforming life force will change my son into a father and finally a shrinking old man with few teeth but many memories.  That changeable energy, that transforming life force that enlivens him is, to me, G-d. 

            I used to run a nursery school and some of the things I miss about it are the seasonal projects.  In the fall children made artwork out of collected seedpods and leaves.  In the spring we had caterpillars that built cocoons then became butterflies.  We put fertilized eggs into incubators and watched them change each day until they emerged as cute fluffy chicks (and later became big smelly chickens!)  Those projects reminded us of the wonder-full power of transformation that I call G-d.

            When I look at the trees I see G-d.  Roots spreading deep below the surface reaching tentacles down for nutrients that then get sucked up into the farthest highest branches. Leaves waving in the wind and at this time of the year glowing with the reflected light from the slanted sun.  In the winter new growth will begin when the light changes yet again and the sap flows.   These amazing energy exchanges are part of what I call G-d.

            The science teacher told me at the copy machine one day about a theory that we choose our spouses because their smell is different then our own to better ensure variety in our gene pool.  That to me is the work of G-d.  Particle-wave theory, muons or undersea crystalline structures, are also the handiwork of G-d.  Not because I don’t understand it – but because the more I do understand the intricacies of this world around us, the more in awe of it all I am.

            When I think about Moses at a burning bush, the Buddha under a tree, Jesus at a river, Muhammed in a cave, or Lao Tzu in the mountains, I do believe they have had an experience with that nature-force called G–d.  But I also believe it can happen to anyone of us who sits on the edge of the ocean at night and watches the moon and stars or a group of people who either through song and dance or calm quietude feel the spirit of G-d alight upon them.

            G-d can be embodied in each one of us as well. In the Christian experience this creative force becomes personalized in the life and death of Jesus who by sharing human experience, sharing human pain and overcoming human death understands what we go through.  Hindus recognize the divine in each one of us by bowing and saying namaste.  Quakers see a divine light in each one of us.  And the Sufi mystic, Rumi, likened the divine in us to the breath through a flute.  They both make beautiful sound.

            I believe G-d is in those moments – sometimes brief – when there is abundant love and kindness.  An old Jewish saying says that the Shekinah, the spirit of G-d is there when a husband and wife embrace.  I think it was there in those times that my mother had her arm around me and read to me, as it is when I have my arms around my children.  It is there when someone helps a stranger, or an orphan or anyone in need.

            Does this make me a pantheist, one who sees G-d in everything?  Yes.  And furthermore, I believe in miracles, because the word miracle comes from the same root word as the word mirror does – the Latin word to wonder.  And as I see life’s creative energy reflected in everything in & around me, I do wonder and marvel.

            I sometimes go to synagogue and I celebrate all of the Jewish holidays.  Both our sons had Bar Mitzvahs.  But for me, the vehicle of Judaism is just that.  It is a way – not the way.  It is a language with a grammar and a vocabulary I can use to communicate, but it’s not the only language.  And like any language, it has its limitations.  We use analogies or metaphors for speaking about G-d in Judaism.  But they are just metaphors and they aren’t the only ones that work and they don’t show the whole picture. 

            As we start this new year, as we get into our year's busy schedules and the stresses of work, social lives, errands, responsibilities, set aside some time – each day and each week -- to get in touch with that creative energy force inside of you and outside of you.  Whether you do it alone or with others, through prayer or meditation, with music or with silence, at a communal place or in the woods, be in touch with that spirit.  Whether you call it nature, G-d, Shekinah, Jesus, the divine light, chakra energy, chi, Allah, the Force or simply love and goodness be in touch with that which makes life wondrously beautiful and creative.  Nurture it, share it, and be nurtured by it.  To be aware of and tapped into cosmic energy is like a light bulb using electricity.  If each one of us takes the time to be fed by and to feed the spark of creative energy inside of us, the potent force would be truly awesome.