How sinister am I?

I am sinister. How gauche! Yes, I‘m left-handed. Both “sinister” and “gauche” mean “left” in other languages (Latin and French, respectively). This reveals the latent prejudices of the past. I did not receive the ruler slap in school for writing left-handed. In kindergarten I told the other kids that the scissors with writing on them worked best. “LEFT,” it said, as I later learned.

We struggle with variety

We see tremendous variation in geography, geology, fauna, flora. There are wonderful differences between and within types. This is part of the beauty of God’s world. God likes variety, but we struggle with it. 

Human differences often result in division or dominance, one race over or against another, one culture treated as superior. We put people into either/or categories. Even the term “neurodivergence” does this. It implies a standard from which others deviate.

Difference is not necessarily divergence. We have come to see that left-handedness is a minority variation within the human population, but it is not deviant. Is my mild dyslexia a disability or only a difference? It is not a conscious wrong departing from the norm. We need broader categories than right/wrong, black/white or normal/divergent.

The categories we use

As a manager, my wife used personality tests with her teams. These helped employees see that people act, react, think and communicate differently. I’ve taken an Enneagram test. You might be familiar with the Myers-Briggs categories: introvert/extrovert, sensing/intuiting, thinking/feeling and judging/perceiving. Knowing the sixteen various ways these factors combine is helpful, although it does make “little boxes” out of continuums. “All models are flawed, some are useful,” as George Box said. 

As a teacher, it was immensely helpful to learn about different learning styles. It helped me teach better by using different approaches to appeal to the variety of ways students learn. I was educated when the verbal learning style, read/write and talk/listen, was predominate. That worked very well for me. It did not work as well for my kinesthetic brother. My wife went into mathematics and computing, in part, because it did not require so much writing. With PowerPoint, I developed my visual teaching style. I had students work in groups. That worked better for social learners, even though I, as a solitary learner, disliked it. Again, these are differences on an overlapping continuum, not deviance from a norm.

As a pastor, I learned that people experience and express their spirituality in different ways. Some meditate; others act. Some are prayer warriors; others are students of Scripture. Some listen, some sing, some discuss, some go for a walk in nature alone. There are the pietists, the doctrinalists and the transformationalists. There are differences of emphasis, but all are needed. 

A variety of gifts 

God gives us a variety of gifts to share with each other. Paul wrote, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. . . . Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)

I grieve those who have left the church because they are different. Unity is not uniformity. God loves variety. Some of our churches block those who are different. How gauche, how sinister.