Diversity in planting in
Nava Danya, India

Today I took time to write a personal response to a young friend’s pubic article on “Black Catholic History”. I disagreed with his understanding of some historical facts, particularly ones that I had lived through and that happened before he was born. My friend wrote back thanking me for my comments, admitting we disagreed on some points and said he would talk with me personally about them but he did not want to start an “email debate.” I can understand his comment but question why he thought I wanted to start a “debate” by my private email response any more than he wanted to start a “debate” with his public article. Personally I have experienced email debates and they do lead, as he said, to misunderstanding. However, I do not understand why my disagreement with his historical comments would lead to a divisive debate, in any form, written in an article or email or in person. I did a little research on the Internet before making my comments and gave him a few historical references to check out.

I mentioned the above to point out a major difference between my generation and my young friend’s generation. We would have teach-ins, discussion, debates on all sort of issues when I was in college or graduate school, as my friend is, and not take things personally or have misunderstandings. We did not have email or would have used it. The ability to civilly disagree seems much easier then than now.

I do not think email or the Internet is why people cannot talk civilly any longer about their disagreements and now take everything so personally. In fact the Internet, web sites, blogs and email have broadened our ability to discuss, debate, research and reconcile. I think the diversity of opinions or moral view or understanding is not the issue any more than email. The problem is that today I do not find the deep desire for unity. Diversity should lead to greater unity not to more differences.

There is a lesson we can learn from the garden here. In a good garden all the diverse plants are joined by the sun, rain, earth and environment. In one of the organic farms I visited in India they were experimenting with how many kinds of diverse plants and what ones they could grow in a small area. They were finding unity of growing in the diversity, that plants, being different, were helping each other to grow.

So to my young friend I say, yes I will talk to you in person or by email about a difference in understanding of the historical record on the subject of Black Catholic History. If we debate, discuss, compare research in email, articles or person it does not matter. As long as we seek unity in our diversity all will be well. Check out the garden.

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