WHO'S RIGHT HERE, THE POPES OR MOM?

How special and unique are we, really...?

Poets have said we're all like snowflakes, not one on the planet quite like any other. Popes have added that each life is an unrepeatable act of God. But meanwhile, mothers have been known for generations to stare at their children and sigh: "You're just like your father!"

So which is it? How are we humans to be understood by a parent? a teacher? a cop? a general or mayor or president? True, our eyes tell us we all act differently. Yet our psychologists tell us we are in our essence all the same. Can such a contradiction be reconciled? Lets try. Lets say: We are all the same differently.

Like a baseball is the same object, different pitchers can make it do different things. Like a pair of lungs are the same organ, different breathers can put it to different purposes. Like a history textbook is the same, different teachers can study it with their students in different ways.

As usual, Shakespeare says it best. In THE MERCHANT OF VENICE he assembles two historic opposites -- European Christians and European Jews. But when Shylock confronts his Christian tormentors, he is speaking to us all: "He hath disgraced me and what's his reason? I am a Jew. But hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons. If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

So just about the time you and I begin to believe we're the only one who has thought this thought...felt this feeling...sung this victory. Or experienced this doubt....feared this fear...lost this battle...known this betrayal. That's the time to draw upon the comfort -- yes, comfort seems the correct word -- that you're hardly the first. Hardly the only. Hardly the last.

See...? We are all the same differently....! There is pride in our differentness, but comfort in our sameness. A reality that not only fits us like a glove, it should also fit our families, our communities, our churches, and our nations. Trouble is, this glove seems to be ignored by 21st C Americans as much as it was 14th C Venetians.