When I was a young boy I like to play with Lego. Lego has changed over the years I think. Now you seem to buy a kit to build one particular thing. You follow the directions on the box, look at the picture and voila you have a train, or an automobile garage, or a Star Wars' death star or something like that. When I was young though all you got was blocks of different colours and shapes. You built whatever you could with what blocks you had. Sometimes you would have to use your imagination to see what the object was that you would build. Then unlike the kits, you would tear down your creation and build something brand new. I think tearing down the structures was even more fun until someone accidentally stepped on an errant lego piece. Usually it would be my Father and we would learn new words as he hopped around in pain.
While we didn't have all of the fancy kits that exist in Lego now, we did have different sorts of pieces. There were the short square ones with 4 pegs on top. There were the longer pieces with 2 pegs on the one side and 8 pegs on the other. There were the flat pieces with many notches on. There were triangular pieces, pieces to make windows or door frames, even some circular pieces. It became quite fun to put all of these weird shapes together and build amazing structures until finally the laws of physics won out and the structure would fall. I also liked building a base and then place the next piece slightly off centre, then one more, and another until I had the Lego pieces on top that seemed suspended in mid air.
I think Lego is a good demonstration of how some people look at society. Some people would like everyone to be the same as everyone else. If everybody was like me then we would have no problems. They are like those vertical towers of square Lego blocks. Yes a functional building but not very exciting. One square Lego, on top of another Lego exactly the same size, on top of another Lego the same size. They only thing that might vary is the colour of the Lego. You might do red, blue, white, white, green, red. It might be a functional building but it is boring to put together.
Other people look at society as a community of differences. They realize that we can't all be alike. We have different experiences, different talents and skills, different motivations, different heritages. It takes a bit of work to put them all together. Sometimes when you try to put a triangular piece on top of a rectangular block, the next piece does not fit easily. But when you are finished, you have a real work of art. It might take some give and take to finish your piece and to keep it all holding together, but it is much more fun than just a simple vertical tower of square blocks put together.
I think that is the case when it comes in terms of race relations. I am not sure who are the square blocks, the flat blocks, the round blocks, and the triangular blocks. I can't tell you which of us is blue, green, yellow, white, red or black. That does not matter. The fact is we are all these different colours, shapes and sizes. We can't all fit into one perfect boring tower of square blocks. We need to learn from one another, support one another, face challenges with one another to build our society. It is not the easy way. But it is the only way. Now lets go play some Lego. Blessings.
