Absolute Distinction

Photo Credit: Ryan Klinck

By Andrea Lingle

Imagine a jeweller who had developed to such an extent his knowledge of precious stones that his whole life was in this distinction between genuine and false, suppose he saw a child playing with a variety of stones, genuine and false, mingled together, and having equal delight in both—I think he would shudder inwardly at seeing the absolute distinction resolved; but in case he beheld the child’s happiness, its delight in the game, he perhaps would humble himself under it and be absorbed in this “shuddering” sight.

Kierkegaard from Stages of Life’s Way, p. 205 (SV VIII 37)

“Absolute distinction.”

Incommensurable worlds. Dialectically opposed. Right and wrong, black and white, in and out. 

A parable, this parable, invites us into the space between incommensurable worlds. 

Incommensurable worlds are perspectives that share no common ground. They are places of deep divide: absolute distinction. The space between incommensurable worlds is not like the countryside between cities, it is a rupture between worlds. It is a, seemingly, unbridgeable chasm. 

The Missional Wisdom Foundation teaches that community is a means of grace, but often community is a place where incommensurable worlds collide. People trying to come together who can’t imagine a universe wherein my view on that could possibly live with yours. Community as a means of grace has a beautiful ring to it, but the reality is hard. It forces each person in the community to wrestle with the idea of what it means to live in grace. Does that mean to accept everything? Does that mean to insist that everyone conform to your understanding of the world?

Grace also asks us to wonder what communities that operate in grace look like. Often when thinking, talking, and praying about a community of grace we are tempted by candy-spun ideas of perfect harmony. Literally and figuratively. I know this happens to me every summer. I think to myself: when the kids get out of school we will spend our days equally split between walking in shaded parks, practicing our instruments together, and eating watermelon on the front porch—without getting sticky.

But that isn’t how it happens. Ever. Not one time. When summer really comes, the kids lose their schedule and wills to be kind, I remember that entropy has full control over our house, and watermelon stains.

So, does that mean that we have failed to be a community of grace? I know what I think, but, this is a series on parables. Parables invite us into a question, not a single perspective. Parables make space for unimaginable worlds to come together, and, in that space there is difficulty, discomfort, and uncertainty. Sometimes that doesn't feel like grace. Sometimes that just feels hard. 

But, what if?

What if something new could be born in that space of incommensurability and friction?