Diversity as the Law of Nature
[Previously published under the title, “That Hideous Strength,” as part of of the Queer Place Trilogy, a three-part coming out memoir.]
Part I: Diversity as Law: Nature // Society
Offer hospitality to one another without complaint.
- 1 Peter 4:9
There are places on this earth where the sun does not shine.
And it is still Good.
Under the rocks, where many-legged critters dance and whirl. Under the sea, where squid paint and lionfish are proud. Under the dense trees in the rainforest, where merely two percent of sunlight graces the ground. It is here, we begin our excursion. Beneath this intractable arbor, the earth quickly turns the fallen, the lost, and the leery into fodder for the tall tree-towers above. A kaleidoscope of fungi frolic upon things that have given up or given in. Toads and frogs leap, laughing from the lower levels to the understorey of forest's palace. Those that creep and croak, those that are cringe-able, intimidating, and odd make a home. But so, too, do those that are bright, those that sing and whistle, those that swoop and delight. This palatial estate entertains and sustains all. The air they share is thick, but the necessity they share is thicker. They need each Other.
Taking a step in, you see complexity itself unravel like the resident fern fronds. Connected to the chute of Life, dependencies unfold, revealing deep networks, unfurling in time. For here Nature houses not only those of sky or branch, but of sky and branch, not just of water or earth, but also the wanderers of both. This house itself is a dynamic complexity. Within and throughout four distinct strata of trees, life is made, begins, and ends. The emergent level of trees kisses the sky, boasting the tallest of trunks. The canopy layer creates a dense, far-reaching loft for a plethora of species to rest. The broad-leafed understorey layer is tucked in, just beneath the jealous canopy, surviving off very little light, fostering insects and feasts for those that nest above. All these towers stand firm upon the carpet of nutrient rich-earth, the forest floor.
Between the croaking and the cackling, the singing and the screeching, the dancing and the dodging, you will witness much, but while the business of Nature is a ruckus, it is not a riot. The business of Nature is composed, designed, responsible, sensible, balanced. The carrion do not carry off more than they need, and the fruit tree offers all that it has; it does not hold back. In what we humans would consider a chaos of dangers, we see a competition not bent on ultimate victors and decimated losers, but one built on mutually beneficial abundance.
The biodiversity of the rainforest's flora is divided into four distinct strata: emergent at top, canopy, undersrorey, and undergrowth (floor) at bottom.
Such abundance, interconnection, and vibrant dynamism occurs in what biologists and ecologists consider high levels of biodiversity. These are places, like the rainforest, where not only are there a few species that could live off of anything, but there are a flourish of particularities that demand the existence of other particularities in order to thrive. When shock comes to a biologically diverse ecosystem, such as severe logging to a rainforest, or pollutants to a lake or river, it is these unique oddities that disappear first. Those species that can survive off of many species, such as the mosquito, birds of prey, or carnivorous cats, survive longer. But, those species that need a specific temperature range, a particular amount of rainfall, a certain amount of sunlight - these fade. And so do their benefits. All those miracle cures lost in the Amazon remain lost, the veil for infectious diseases falls, and even those funny videos of rare birds dancing, even those, must be forgotten.
Our body's natural homeostasis is disturbed with introduction of certain variables, but it has a response protocol to bring back balance.
The fragility of the rainforest is like another complicated system: the human body. Just as the four strata of the rainforest help create a structure for diverse species to find a home and find flourishing, so do our physical bodies house diverse processes for the overall survival and thriving of the full human being. Though I may not always know how to treat my body, it has systems that - until abused or diseased - function to keep me well within the balancing mechanism called homeostasis. While various, even countering, processes occur in the body, it can be pushed back to health and balance.
However, as we know, sickness is often imminent. A breach of homeostasis elicits panic. Our bodies go into overdrive to find a solution, and we feel its endeavor. We run a fever, we get a rash, we feel anxious, we become fatigued. A force seemingly beyond our control is working hard to get our body back to full capacity. It appears to us that entropy is ensuing, and that we will spiral from simple composure to complete loss in chaos. But, then the coughing stops, the sweat ceases, the irritation subsides. And we are back to being our simply healthy Selves.
Whether it is between the buzzards and the bees or the excess of bile and the things that make us smile, stasis occurs when there is a correct allocation of resources. Within stasis, a system - ecological, corporeal, or otherwise - can function at its highest potential, all-things-go without the concern of its internal structures being compromised by the diversity of their needs, but rather the complexity of its character acting as a boon to integrity. The growth of one system provides the fuel for the next, the waste of one activity it is the catalyst for another's creation. Everything goes to use, and nothing is useless. Even that which is ejected as waste can become ground for the next foundation, the next field for planting, the next string of DNA, the next company of fiddleheads.
The law of Nature is diversity. This is obvious from observing Creation's inherent complexity. The biodiversity of the rainforest reveals to us that simple, passive relations are insufficient. Creation has not stopped, but rather Creation is dangerously dynamic. Life spirals in an ecosystem where cycles of water, growth, birth and decay distribute necessary resources throughout a structure built to thrive. The removal or change of one variable, one mis-flap of a butterfly's wings - as chaos theory would have it - or the severing swing of a greedy lumberjack's ax, and the whole system could go awry, at great cost to those within it or beside it. So, too, will your body fight itself into a sickness, into the tangle of misbehaving internal systems, turning up temperatures, turning down hunger - drives meant for our survival - striving to reach homeostasis despite newly introduced variables. Nature demands diversity continue its designed flow, and when re-imagined order or dangerous indifference challenge unnaturally the natural system of equilibrium, the integrity of Creation's complexity becomes fragile and backfires.
Society is another a complex system built from diverse actors, interconnected strings of supply-demand, and hidden caveats. Though Society is not one closed-circuit, natural system of itself but an amalgam of many complex systems (those are, humans), it reflects the nature of the complexities inside, and amounts to a strength far greater than the sum of its diverse parts. Society is strong, it is willful. It is made up of bodies composed by homeostasis, and we humans in turn seek to establish balance in the world around us to mirror the world within. We seek a correct allocation of resources, just like the coordinating flows of our individual bodies. We create firm structures of transportation, disbursal, and discipline. However, like our bodies, our Society is reactive. It is quick to catch a fever.
When a new variable enters, Society reacts to the new trend. Growth occurs. Laws are determined. Norms are established. Characteristics replicated. And an age goes by, marked by the patterns of the Strong. But, in time, a new age comes. New trends crop up, or old trends reemerge. Purportedly symptoms of something potentially dangerous, Society reacts again. But this time, perhaps the system flares up, and the temperature rises to burn out the "sickness". With challenges to the core of the system, common comforts become frivolities, and all marginal excesses are eliminated. Communication is tightened, hierarchies are enforced, binaries are relied upon. Warmth becomes a fever, sticky sweat welcomes too-deep sleep, and sleep invites unconsciousness. And so thriving is again lost to the fight for survival. Despite its willfulness, Society is fragile and easily becomes somnolent so as to sleep off the "sickness" of change.
Momentary reactivity is not enough. Society, to survive, must take a note from the field book of observed natural complexities and learn the rite of deep diversity. Homeostasis is not enough. Homeostasis balances only the system in place - even the ugly, even the unjust, even the outdated or the out-discovered. Society is strong, but Nature is stronger. It has been here before us, and it will be here after us. Let us learn from it, and Nature's Author, who wrote diversity like a backdrop, not an afterthought or mere detail. It is time that Society adapted like the Nature of the rainforest, a parade of diversity to bring glory to the Creator, Created, and Creative.
To illustrate this, I asked my friend Rachel Daley if she would allow me to share a story of hers. The context for her telling is a reflection on Isaiah, who foresees the coming Christ, whose powerful peace will command even the most opposing of natures to be quelled, encouraging even the lion and lamb to lay next to each other amiably. She imagines this idyll as a rambunctious parade led by the Child-King:
I have a story to tell you; it is a story about a parade.
The entrants are already lining up: wolf and lamb, cow and bear. The lion won’t harm anyone, not anymore, but you still might feel a shiver race through your body at her low, husky growls. I’m especially interested in the leopard, because leopards today have a reputation for being sneaky and solitary. I wonder if it will be hard at first for everyone to get along. Eventually, everyone moves into formation behind the leader.You might not believe it at first, but the whole group is led just by a small child.
Then they start marching, a ragtag band of animals keeping step behind the child. They begin in the rubble and waste that remain after the burning of a forest.
That is only the beginning.
This clanging, clamoring troupe is on the move. They march through city streets and across farmland. They dance through suburbs and through slums, calling everyone to attention with a cacophony of grunts, roars, and meows. The child in front plays a trumpet, bounding recklessly up mountains and skipping across rivers. The parade squeezes through the hallways of hospital wards and they skate over melting ice caps. They sing and shout through refugee camps, pausing for a game of tag in a battlefield.
They are on the move, coming toward us, just out of sight.
Now and again we might glimpse a reflection or hear an echo of their celebration.
And we pray for it to grow. And we pray to hear it more clearly.
And we pray ever that we might see it more and more.
I like Rachel's image of the Kin-dom for many reasons. First, it is realistic. The community of God-followers must march through the wreckage and also the whimsy of the created-but-used-up world. Secondly, it is absurd. To think such diverse animals could find a common tune to step with, or find one leader to follow! But, "This clanging, clamoring troupe is on the move." To join the Child-Leader's chorus, we must bring what we have, and a little flexibility. Your neighbor may be off-beat or out-of-tune, but perhaps that is just what their striving sounds like. Let them strive.
Diversity is integral to the complex system of social good. In our ongoing pursuit of Love, we cannot lose anything by hearing another's story, another's experience, another's song of life in this infinitely interconnected cosmos. In each narrative, we can gather clues, for in each telling we gain witness to unique perspectives of Creation's complexity. Open wide the gate to the Society's square, for if the road to the Creator is narrow, we will need to teach many the way of discernment, that in time they may become the few.
There is simplicity reflected on the other side of complexity, but to hold on to familiarity or ease as facsimiles of simplicity would be inhospitable to the Spirit's spontaneous revelations, nongermane to the deep richness of the living Word, and incongruent with the laws of Nature. Step out of the Strong-armed line of Society, and into the mass of the Kin-dom Parade.
Edward Hicks' The Peaceable Kingdom (1826) envisions not only the absurd animal kin-dom communing, but in the background we see European colonists making peace with First Nation peoples. Clearly, a prayer, more than reality.
Part II: The Third Way
:: Holy Creativity
I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.
- of Immanuel Kant, by Karl Popper
Diversity is the law of Nature and demands interconnectedness, interdependence.
We must be a we, lest the last I be left alone. Diversity, as we know, invites complexity.
I want to take a moment to clarify the difference between "complexity" and something that is "complicated". Complexities are naturally-occurring phenomena that are dynamic systems created from a large number of self-same parts. A fractal, a fiddlehead, or a nautilus are examples. Larger, more dynamic examples include a flock of starlings or a school of fish. You can see that these systems are actually created of all the same unit, so to use the term "diverse" could be misleading. Conversely, systems that are described as "complicated" are those that have different parts with different uses, each obviously unique in form and function, such as clock or a dishwasher - at least, these machines are far past my understanding. Here and below, I want to pose that humanity can be seen as both, and thus a complicated complexity. We are a wide, dispersed school of equals, yet obviously each unique and called to work together, like clockwork.
Placing the clunkiness of complicated systems aside, let us mold into a complexity. Within complexities, differences fade, and simple core drives create deep connections and shared flows, such as surviving or thriving, happiness or harm, community or solitude. When resources are rightly allocated, when social consensus is achieved, the chosen end can blossom.
Natural complexity: Based on unseen communication, swarms, flocks, schools acts in mass as if it were simply one unit.
Immanuel Kant's philosophy of ethics reminds us to see people as ends, rather than as means to an end. While I am no expert in Kantian ethics, I think we can agree on this idea. Furthermore, I offer that what we do as humanity - collected humans - will beget the greater end that is humankind. In this way, each human is like an elastic tether pulling our kin toward their particular end, either rending the garment of humanity at opposing ends or effectively pitching it like a tent when moved to coordinated ends. We can thus allow or intend our end-pursuits to invite others into open collaboration of our broad talents, habits, and needs, or we can disperse ourselves in mourning, distraught in our "irreconcilable" differences and the hardening of our hearts. If we allow our created particularities to become confounding peculiarities, rending the fabric of humanity, then we will be left with nothing but our own bundle of oddity, our own familiar ends. Alone in a contrived safety. But, if we submit to the tug of Shalom, that common end will be peace, celebration, and communion as One.
Perhaps I am dense, ignorant, young, off-balance, or naive, but I do not believe in irreconcilable differences. It is mystic, but I believe that if we start with Christ's example of reconciling even Death with Life, then we can reconcile all oppositions, we can unfold all binaries; God can heal any bigotry, hate, denial, or greed.
I believe in the Third Way. I believe not in Life or Death, but in Resurrection. I believe not in male or female, but in human embodiment. I believe not in old or young, but in wisdom revealed. I believe not in violence or surrender, but in peaceful resistance. I plant my stake not in the camp of gay or straight, but the within the oddity of queerness. I rely not on simplicity or simplicity, but on the fullness of complexity.
Above all, I believe and trust in Holy Creativity.
Creativity is the hideous strength of humanity. It is used with different means, for any given operative end. It is malleable and it is volatile. Ingenuity. Reproduction. Innovation. Manufacturing. Engineering. Creative acts can be categorized as variously as we can create, from urban design to cross-stitch. But the crux of Diversity - our present plight - is balanced upon the fulcrum of Creativity. That is to say, upon Creativity, our activities can wrest toward various ends. Atop Creativity's pleasantly unsteady platform, you can lean toward the path from which you came, lead toward a path that’s been sold to you, or leap to a path unknown. In the terms of Oliver Wendell Holmes, you can lean back to toward a known "simplicity" or forward into "complexity" in hope you might find a renewed simplicity on the other side: the simplicity of obtained understanding, versus the simplicity of the obviously known.
Striving to conserve a known simplistic vision of socialized sexuality, we have driven humanity toward the exploits from an Empire of Industry. This is a kingdom of procured processes with assumed and assured products. Doubtless, innovation in product industry and effective design demands human creativity, but it utilizes an efficiency unfit for the development of human Self narratives. There is a dire divide between Creativity to beget efficient inventions and the Holy Creativity that forms the realized Self within the fractal of Shalom.
Industry’s great miracle is Efficiency, whereby a simplicity is promoted as sufficient. It asks questions that reveal its cult of immediacy and impatience. "If A begets B, how can we get B more quickly and more easily? How can we cut costs? How can be get higher quantities?" And so on. While this logic follows unfettered in the creation of objects, it is disastrous when applied to subjects - to us. Yet, Efficiency partners with Convenience, and with their child, the Binary, they rule our social constructs.
But, Convenience is the false gospel of a false god; It does not exist in Created Nature. Convenience, is, well, a convenience. Birds do not fly in straight lines, yet they find a home. Anthills are a mess of scattered scavenging, yet amass in due order. Vines do not only grow up, but over, across, even down. "What poor, reckless Nature, that it has not come to know the joys of Pythagoras' C-line," Industry scoffs. Industrialized Creativity is the result of the celebrated marriage of Convenience and Efficiency, who walk hand in hand down the path of least resistance. Yet this unholy union, Society's satisfactory deus ex machina, divorced from the true progress of Nature's nurturing narrative, offers salvation for those who desire to stay in present simplicity rather than reach through complexity.
A tree shall be known by its fruit. The social products manufactured by an Industry ruled by Convenience and Efficiency are inevitably bigotry, confusion, violence, or apathetic indifference. Simple devices to safeguard the familiar, to hide the beauty of complexity behind a diagram of the begrudgingly complicated. But, remember Society is both - and more. Under Industry's unholy reign, we have and we will succumb to an industrial morality of stark social binaries: an infrastructure of inflexible views, quick and pointed judgments, and a sharp discipline of neglect for the people that don't "fit."
Through use of a prism, white light refracts to reveal the full spectrum of visible light.
Pythagorean Theorem: On a Right Triangle, distance C will be shorter than A and B combined.
But, what of Holy Creativity? What of the Kin-dom of the Creator? How can we humans exercise this hideous strength, so that our congenital creative spirits might open our arms rather than close our fists? How can we deny the simplicity of the Cult of Industry, when it promises us so much, so soon? How can we learn to practice the rite of Holy Creativity? We must follow the paradoxical Third Way of Christ, who defined the narrow gate by healing the wounded, that more might walk through to the wide Kin-dom of God. I have brothers, sisters, and siblings otherwise who are knocking - who will answer their call? Will it be the stone-faced keeper of the old law, the Harbinger of Wrath? Or will it be the Liberator of Legions, baptized One of the Creative, the Created One before-and-for all of Creation?
Truly, we need not knock, the Prism Christ is present. Christ, from whose Light all the rainbow cosmos was bent to reflect and refract the infinitesimal beauty of the Creator's fullness - that Jesus is here, and inviting us once again into Beauty. The Firstborn of Nature is asking us to collapse the shrines to Convenience and Efficiency, and embrace Nature’s mystic law of Diversity, complexity and all.
Bend the lines, break the binaries, retire the Industry.
Instead, may we celebrate loudly in the tent of the Holy, Wholly Creative.
May we dance wildly under Creation's canopy,
Where swooping, slithering, swiping, and swimming
Become a choreography of delightful interdependence.
May we enjoy more fully the bird's song, the wildcat's growl, the frog's croak,
Convinced that a Creative cacophony is redeemed, heard as a righteous symphony.
More clearly, may we rejoice in the diverse gifts that our gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans*, asexual, questioning, and otherwise queer and wonderfully odd kin can bring in worshipful wandering toward God's Shalom.
And Lord,
In your Mercy, allow us to unwrap these treasured gifts of Self with humility, even hesitation, if we need.
In Your Grace, teach us tenderness and patience, when we have been tempted by ignorance and negligence.
And by Your Justice, prepare us to accept nothing
but the Truth in Love.
Journey onward into the wonder-full complexity of Creation.
Shalom,
Jason Brown
[January 2015]
