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Believer, Your Uniqueness is Needed
Harmony comes from our diversity.
One evening years ago when my husband and I sat down to supper, we sang the blessing as we often do. Our daughter, four years old at the time, asked why we changed notes. She was used to hearing us sing the tune in unison, but my husband and I had thrown in some harmonizing for the Amen.
As we explained the concept of harmony to her, my husband concluded, “Each singer has to stick to their own note — then we have harmony.”
A choir couldn’t very well share a tune if everyone sang the same pitch. You wouldn’t have much of an orchestra if every musician played the same tone on the same instrument. How boring would that be?
This illustrates a magnificent paradox: Each person’s individuality is unique — and yet simultaneously exists within the oneness of God’s Allness.
Our oneness isn’t found in “a single culture, language, or place of origin,” wrote Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, ordained American Baptist and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community, “but rather in our shared ideals, values, and aspirations, as well as in our commitment to love the other as much as ourselves.” (p. 33)
In order for all of the wondrous qualities of God to be fully revealed in the world…
