A World of Difference
We all have our comfortable circles. There are places where we feel we belong and we are understood.

As the theme song from Cheers says. "Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. And they're always glad you came."

Everybody needs places of such refuge and belonging

But being comfortable with like-minded people can produce a spiritual ghetto that at its worst can turn into mob-think.

There is something stimulated when you find yourself among strangers, without title or standing, listening to ideas and thoughts that come from a different and challenging perspective.

We need one another in all of our diversity.

That's a lesson we get from Jesus who crossed all kinds of religious and cultural barriers to interact with those who were different from him and different from each other.

St. Paul offers the image of the body. A complete humanity needs all parts of the body.

The ear can't say to the eye, "I have no need of you." ...

by Lowell Grisham
from "Stunted by Sameness"

Cinco de Mayo celebrates a specific David and Goliath experience that is important in the history of the Mexican people. ...

It was on cinco de Mayo 1862 that the Mexican people defeated the great Napoleon and his army in one of the most honored battles in Mexican history. ...

The struggle of today’s churches to meet the needs of the Spanish-speaking Christians in their midst may be an equally difficult challenge. ...

by Jon Sweeney
from "Cinco de Mayo and the Scramble to
Meet the Needs of Spanish-Speaking Christians"

"I have to believe that there's a purpose for everything," my student said, as much to herself, I suspected, as to her classmates.

Her position made perfect sense.

If she didn't believe that bad things happen for a reason, how would she be able to deal with the head injury her father had suffered several years ago, or for that matter, with her birth mother's decision to give her up for adoption? ...

Sensing that others might not share her certitude, I asked, "Does anyone have a different point of view?"

Cautiously, a trio of students raised their hands. I lifted mine as well. ...

by Susan Hanson
from Signposts Daily Devotion May 2, 2006