Unity and Uniformity
I'll begin this post with a personal scientific experience.
In a scientific paper I wrote correlating the heat transfer involved in thermal management of a heated surface and the dynamic (size and velocity) of droplets from an impinging intermittent spray, I realized that the best empirical approach to describe experimental results was the one that distinguished different periods within an injection cycle. This implied developing a correlation for each period with a similar characteristic behavior in terms of temperature, drop size and velocity. Therefore, the final correlation comprised the "unity" between three different correlations. Why is this approach better than previous ones? In previous approaches, the single correlation determined "uniformized" the distinct periods identified in intermittent sprays, instead of uniting them, recognizing their differences. This not only happens in engineering.
One of the most stunning and surprising sentences I read in a Biology textbook was "the world tends to unity". Considering the diversity in nature, biologists recognize that everything relates with everything else. Even an isolated system exists in a surrounding environment. These relational patterns express a unity between parts making the whole more than their mere sum. For me, the conclusion is simple. Unity presupposes diversity. I can only unite what is different, otherwise we're the same.
This made incredible sense when I thought about why I married my wife. We're different, but our differences were fascinating, up to a point I couldn't live outside this matrimonial unity in the diversity of characters. Because we were different, unity made much more sense and strengthened throughout the years. We're more in love now, than before we got married. And we suffer like every other couple, but that is a secret for another story.
This conclusion observed in science, in family, was perfectly coherent with my spiritual journey. A discovery of God as Trinity without division or confusion. I couldn't think about the Father, without thinking in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And the same was valid for the Son relatively to the Father and Holy Spirit, or to the Holy Spirit relatively to the Father and Son. In God as Trinity, Persons in Communion, we see perfect unity in diversity. Therefore, what could I expect to find in this world but a material expression of its Creator? The unity in biodiversity we see in nature is precisely what I would expected if the Creator of the World "is" unity in diversity.
Not all have this theological experience. But underlying other spiritualities or religions there's this relational background permeating their essence. In them I see seeds of my experience, and in my experience they see seeds of theirs. However, not all differences apparently induce a stronger unity. Some may divide us. Think about people with different value systems like I don't believe in the death penalty and someone does.
How is unity possible when what makes us who we are causes our differences? I don't know, but isn't that unknown part of Humanity's journey toward the future? I would say whatever differences bring division among us are only temporary relational shocks prior to a greater unity. It takes time to understand those differences and set on the right path toward unity. And, in the end, everything will be ok. Thus, if it's not ok, it only means we haven't reach the end...
