Lift your head and look up from your screen. In that short moment, your eyes took in an incredibly diverse array of colors, shapes, textures, and light. Now close your eyes and listen. In that short moment, you again took in a wide variety of sounds: both sustained and fleeting, natural and human-made, invited and uninvited. And immediately, your brain started to make unified sense of this input, attaching value, emotion, story, and understanding.

We are hard-wired by our Creator to see diversity and to make unified meaning out of the world we inhabit, using the “software” of our culture, experiences, beliefs, and circumstances. But too often, our corrupted, imperfect world uses differences from a twisted, fear-based place for division. This is not the truth. This is not what will set us free.

And so, let us joyfully continue to strive for collective liberation as we claim the truth of our beautiful diversity in our unique and beloved communities. May we intentionally reclaim diversity through the Perfect Love in which there is no fear (I John 4:18) to its redemptive purpose of unified strength and deeper meaning.