In my adult life, I have lived in parts of the U.S. that might be considered on the far ends of the diversity continuum. When people imagine a lack of diversity, it is easy to think of the northern suburbs of Dallas, TX or Plano, TX or Texas A&M. These places have a lot in common with Agrestic, the fictional setting for the Showtime series Weeds. When people imagine a diverse community, it is easy to think of the San Francisco area or of New York or even South Austin - all areas that fit the "cultural creative" arch-type to a tee.

I must say that I've learned & unlearned a lot about diversity over the last 30 years. As a white male, diversity is not a theoretical issue or even something to be sensitive to. It is the air I breathe, that I inhale, it is the seats at MY table that I spread across. Building & maintaining an echo chamber of people like me takes planning & hard work - it is vigilant work to foster homophily, the mortal enemy of diversity. But the truth that I found on both ends of the continuum is captured in this simple statement from Global Voices Online founder Ethan Zuckerman:

Homophily makes you stupid.

The truth of that axiom we learned as kids - "birds of a feather flock together" - is that this flocking makes it hard for people from around the world to relate constructively, to even understand what some one else's life might be like. The little boxes lampooned by Malvina Reynolds are not limited to the suburbs nowadays - we seem to have figured out how to have gated communities for faith orientation, political affiliation, even sexual orientation. The way we have sorted - and fight to protect this sorting - is the functional definition for the origin of the word stupid:

literally "struck senseless," from stupere "be stunned, amazed, confounded,"

A few months ago on a Friday evening, we had a groups of folks over to our home for a potluck, that staple of gathering and eating. We laughed a bunch, shared some stories, even found ideas & people we could meet in and plenty other ideas that did not overlap.

For me, the evening's conversation & plotting were drenched in hope & love. One piece of our discussion has eaten at me - maybe it was the wonderful gumbo. We discussed the reality that there are red churches & blue churches, red issues & blue issues, even red ways to follow Jesus and blue ways. Bishop's insights helped me to understand a bit more of how this has happened, how our drive for affluence & comfort have created echo chambers. We ended our potluck by plotting some conversations after an upcoming event, time to reach for social bridge building, even mess up the ordered sorts we rule our lives with.