“It is not our differences that divide us.  It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. “

— Audre Lorde

The moment a baby is born, it begins.

“I think she looks like great-grandma.”

“She definitely has her mother’s eyes!”

“And her father’s nose, poor thing.”

We learn long before we are able to speak that being like other people is important.  Our similarities make people happy and proud; and when people feel this way, we are loved.  It is nice to have the people who love us point out the ways we resemble them, and recognizing our sameness is part of what we use to define ourselves as individuals.  I am determined, just like my mother.  I am fun-loving, just like my father.

I chuckle as I pass the thought that maybe it is our siblings who are the first ones to teach us that we are not all the same.  As we strive for individuality in our family and then in the larger community, we begin to point out our differences rather than the things we have in common.  We may look alike, but we are totally different.  She has no idea who I really am.  He doesn’t understand a thing I say; I think he may be adopted.

Over-arching these two pieces of how we view ourselves in relation to others is the truth we are told — that we are created in God’s image.  As we move from Aunt Bertha’s smile and grandpa’s curly hair toward the time when we strive to find our own uniqueness, it is easy to turn that around and to assume that God looks just like me.  This is when the differences we discover between ourselves and others can become a problem.  If God looks just like me, and Aunt Bertha, and grandpa, and my mother and father; and you look nothing like us, then you must not be trusted.  We look like God, and you look like something different.

None of us would like to think that we do such things; but if I am honest with myself, I must admit that I feel a certain reservation the first time I meet someone whose differences from what I see in the mirror are undeniable.  What we learn through experiencing our differences is that before long we discover the similarities that lie beneath them.  It is through embracing and celebrating and welcoming differences that we are reminded that God’s image is far too vast to be contained in one person, in one family, or even in one community.

Let’s remember each day, as we walk out into the world beyond our own personal space, to turn suspicion to curiosity and reservation to a sense of adventure.  The more we learn about the different people we meet, the better we will come to know our Creator.  After all, we all are created in his image.