A Faith that Lasts: Value Diversity

As I’ve been learning more about permaculture over the years, I’ve been surprised by just how many of its principles have been present in our culture for centuries in the form of proverbs. We’ve seen two examples of this recently with “Waste not, want not” and “Slow and steady win the race.” Another proverb with strong resonance with permaculture is “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” This saying is about valuing diversity, in our surroundings, in our inputs, and in our outputs. It avoids over-reliance on one thing and thereby promotes robust, complex systems that are insulated against catastrophic damages. Today I’d like to think through this principle and how we might apply it in our life of faith.

The value of diversity in our systems can perhaps best be seen in in its absence. For example, the almost complete reliance on one variety of potato in Irish agriculture in the mid nineteenth century left it incredibly vulnerable to specific blights. The arrival of one of these blights from North America caused the catastrophic crop failure known as the Great Irish Famine, an event which is estimated to have killed one million people and led directly to the emigration of another million. A similar theme can be seen in the banana industry, which relies on specific cultivars that are essentially clones, meaning that there is no genetic diversity at all. The industry collapsed in the 1950s due to a blight to which the then-universal Gros Michel cultivar was vulnerable; we may be seeing this happen again today, as the Cavendish cultivar, which replaced the Gros Michel, is under threat from another blight. These two examples show how an absence of diversity, whether of crops in the case of the Irish famine, or genetics in the case of bananas, makes systems highly vulnerable. The same principle works in other areas as well. For example in economics, overreliance on one industry or product puts a country, region, or city at extreme risk should the market change, and in personal finances, financial planners talk about the importance of having a diverse portfolio. Indeed, Gerd Gigerenzer, a psychologist who has studied human decision-making, found that the most lucrative investment strategy was to ignore the advice of ‘experts’ and simply put a small amount of money in as many pots as possible. And, corporations and businesses with a diverse leadership group have been shown to make better decisions than those lacking diversity at the top. Why might this be? Because if decision makers come from similar cultural and educational backgrounds, they’re likely to have similar blind spots.

Permaculture design places a great emphasis in diversity. It recognizes as an essential principle that left to their own devices, systems grow in diversity over time. As much as we humans seem to struggle with diversity, it is sameness, not difference that is indicative of an unhealthy system. So, permaculture design promotes, rather than inhibits diversity. And it does this in a few ways. First, it promotes interconnectedness among elements, believing that the more connections exist within a system the stronger it will be. (To go back to the analogy from the systems post, think of a network of roads linking communities or neighbourhoods; if there’s only one way in and out, it’s easy to be cut off, but if there are many roads, the chances of becoming isolated are much slimmer.) Second, it looks for multifunctionality wherever possible, increasing connections (and specifically beneficial connections) and increasing capacity within the system by having elements that perform multiple roles. For example, in a garden beans provide food, have a beautiful flower, are a habitat for insects, and help to restore nitrogen levels in the soil. Or, certain shrubs can function as wind-breaks, hedges, and homes for birds, insects, and small mammals. Third, permaculture design builds in redundancy, with important functions carried out by multiple elements or techniques. This creates synergies, but is also helpful for capacity building and continuity of operations, preventing the breakdown of one element becoming a catastrophic failure. I was recently looking into pollinator gardens and it was notable how often diversity appeared in the list of criteria, which includes “a diversity of plants to attract a diversity of pollinators,” a diversity of heights, including trees, shrubs, vines, and plants, and a diversity of bright-coloured blooms and blooming seasons.

So then, let’s turn to see how we might apply this principle in our spirituality and communities of faith.

Simply put, we are not all the same. Beyond the obvious diversity of culture, gender, and economics, we are also morning people and night people, introverts and extroverts, generalists and specialists. We all have different interests, aptitudes, and personalities. And that’s a good thing. As I’ve written before:

Accepting [the way I am] as a personality type means that I don’t assign a value judgment to it: it is not the ‘right’ way to be; it is not a ‘wrong’ way to be. It is simply a difference, and one whose impact will likely be expressed [in every facet of life]…. Understanding a type also helps to understand the ways it can go wrong, or the particular challenges it represents to growth. For example, as an introvert, my growth involved overcoming challenges such as shyness and self-consciousness; whereas for an extrovert, it might entail things like learning to be alone with one’s thoughts and finding identity apart from a group.

Ultimately, personality types are a reminder that my journey isn’t someone else’s journey; my growth won’t necessarily look like someone else’s growth; my maturity won’t always look like my neighbours’. This isn’t a problem, because diversity is a good thing. It takes all kinds of people with all kinds of different strengths, interests, experiences to make society work well. The Apostle Paul speaks powerfully of this in his metaphor of the Church as the ‘Body of Christ’:

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. (Romans 12.4-8)

The point is, there is no one-size-fits-all spirituality. The ways we are different are okay and even to be celebrated. And this should be reflected in our communities, both formal such as churches and informal, such as as our friend groups.

But beyond simply being a fact of human existence that has big spiritual implications, diversity is also be a helpful aspect within our spirituality.

• Interconnectedness: Again, the more an element is connected to the rest of the system, the stronger it becomes. A healthy, robust spirituality isn’t just something done in church or on the meditation mat, but pervades every aspect of life, from how we spend our money, to how we relate to others, to ourselves, to our environments, and to our our resources.
• Multifunctionality: The question here is to explore what else any given practice or part of life can contribute to faith. A strong friend-group is a good example of this. I’ve had times in my life where a group of fellow Christian friends has been a source of joy and connection, but also of spiritual encouragement and practical support. In some ways, this blog is a multifunctional part of my spirituality today, providing an opportunity for deep reflection on my faith, but also being a (small) way I can contribute back to the broader Christian community, a spur to further research and study, and a prompt for prayer.
• Redundancy: Here we look at how we can use many different elements to perform the same role. An example of this in my own life is the value of transcendent beauty. I have a lot of different things that fill this bucket, including listening to music, spending time in nature, admiring beautiful architecture, and being a member at the local art museum. If any one of these becomes unavailable to me — for example when the ravines I walk through become inaccessible in winter, or when the pandemic shut down the art museum — the other elements are still there to pick up the slack. This is why, when my ‘faith system’ is running at its peak, I engage in many different types of prayer, including communal and personal liturgical prayer, bullet prayers, intercessions, and contemplative prayer. This redundancy means that if any of these elements falls away for any reason, my life of prayer can still be sustained by the others. (I have to admit that right now, only about half of those elements are working well; the good thing is that because the others are still fully in play, I’m not feeling remotely disconnected from God — far from it!)

These are just some of the ways valuing and promoting diversity can help to build a more robust faith that can withstand stresses and setbacks. In the next post I’ll look at an idea that can help us harness diversity even more: the edge, or margin.

* See the Bibliography for the series for more information.