We have
different ideas about how things are and what needs to be done about it. “You
like to sleep with the window open and I like it closed, so good-bye, good-bye,
good-bye.” Who is right—who is wrong—about the window being open or closed? We
are different to the core. If we were all perfectly aligned with our core, we
would still be different. Oneness at the level of the heart is not agreement
about the window being opened or closed.
I have a
Tibetan singing bowl that I used, before I retired from the ministry, to begin
and end ten minutes of silence in the early Sunday service. We had a Vietnamese
Buddhist monk address the congregation at one point and I asked him to bless
the bowl. He agreed to do so but said to me, “We Vietnamese Buddhists do not
need this for meditation. It is a Tibetan tradition. We go straight into the
meditative state.” There you are. Buddhist denominations.
Oneness
is not agreement. Like minds like to sleep at different room temperatures and
take different approaches to entering meditation. What are the things we all
need to agree to? What are the things we can be free to do differently? It’s
important to agree about what we can disagree about.
There
are women who are pregnant and who, for various reasons, cannot carry their
pregnancy to term. They need the option of having an abortion. There are gay
people who are in loving, committed, monogamous relationships with each other.
They need the option of marriage with full rights and privileges included.
There are illegal immigrants in this country who need the option of legitimacy—perhaps
“Economic Refugee” status—and ways of working out the details of their
residency for the good of all concerned.
The
rules we agree to honor and live by have to take our differences into account
and cannot mandate bell ringing or window closing upon all without regard for
individual needs and interests. We have found ways of making exceptions
regarding how things are to be done for Amish and Mennonite communities. It is
not asking too much to think that we might do the same thing for people of
different persuasions regarding how things are and what needs to be done about
it. The greater the number of differences we can allow and still live together
in caring, respectful, ways is the chief characteristic of a place I could call
home.
