Beneath the surface we share more than we initially see.
I was in Medina, Saudi Arabia with a free morning before heading to the airport and home so I Ubered into town to whichever museum was open earliest.
I soon found myself in front of a modern looking building touting a multi-media experience. Sounded fine. I paid my money, headed down the escalator and emerged into a high-tech journey through the Creation Story according to Islam.
The light and sound show took us on a journey across time. We watched the creation of the universe and the Earth and its people. We saw a parade of Prophets and Messengers and we learned how it all will end.
It was fascinating to see this age-old story through the eyes of a different culture. The most obvious aspect was how familiar it was to my Sunday schooled self. The cast of characters was very familiar, including Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, ‘our’ tribe who escaped the wicked Pharaoh across the parted sea, Noah and his ark, right through to Mary and Jesus.
I was amazed at the extent to which it was the same backstory that I grew up with, at least to that point. I was quite struck because in my time in Medina I had been attuned only to differences; Exotically-dressed people from all over the world visiting exotic looking mosques. The desert. The heat. The smells and tastes. Working with women wearing full Hijabs and Niqabs so I could see only their eyes. It was all so strange and so different!
And yet, scratch the surface and we share great swathes of our deepest and most powerful stories. To a large extent we are the children of the one story.
Isn’t it always the way? Whenever we are interacting with ‘others’ we are quick to spot differences and to make assumptions about them. Yet in every case we have more in common than we think. And a wonderful thing about effective collaboration is that it can reveal our commonality and from it grow something better than any of us can grow on our own.
Viva la difference! Or should that be, viva la similarité!?