The following guest post was contributed by Cornerstone teacher and assistant professor of Spanish and International Studies, Dr. Harland Rall.

First of all, I don’t agree that Humpty Dumpty can never be put back together again. Just live with that statement for a little while, please.

In Cornerstone today, Fabiola mentioned that the story most repeated in her family reunions related how her grandmother would always mention how she used to catch fish barehanded. The contextual trigger for the story would be moments when generational contrasts were emphasized. Even now and even though the grandmother has passed on, someone retells the story and they all laugh because they remember her strength and hard work in hard times. So, embedded in the story is a respect for difference while also admiring the person. In spite of generational worldviews that do separate them, they share an underlying value core of family that holds them together.

Perspectives will probably be quite different in every large group of people—even among those of the same generation. My cousins who live in the Rio Grande Valley are quite different than those who live in northern Kansas. Another example: even though my life in Colombia for 18 years has changed my social and religious values so that I am “a religious radical” to many in my family, we still hold to the saying that “blood is thicker than water”. Or, in our local sense, when we join the “ACU family” we affirm that all our individualities are bonded by a common value that we call ACU.

Spanish authors like to describe society as a stained-glass window rather than a melting pot. Their obvious argument is that distinct facets display individual form and color but they also combine in a whole that is more than their parts. Each glass shard displays its personality and maintains its integrity. They are not forced to conform or become anything different than they originally were. They are not ground into little sand particles to later be recast as one uniform color and shape. What makes them “more than the sum of their parts” is the harmony of artistic design and the solder and foil between the pieces.

My current reaction to Cornerstone is to value the call to be sympathetic about difference while also asking about the solder and foil that could hold us together. In living a sincere desire to see and hear and love those who are marginalized in our society, I want to find what could help us share a stronger, more sensitive and fuller bond. I ask: Why are our bonds weakening? What social “glue” is needed?

A former student, Sara Martinez, wrote in a class paper that we don’t have to be acculturated (all become one culture). The process that we need is to become assimilated (joined as a unity). So, let’s look for the values that conjoin us. In my opinion, they are the ones that seem to act behind the scenes. They are the ones, like family, that reach through the social thickness and maintain their hold on us. They are the shared values that identify us as a group. And yes, I hope that the spiritual bonds of respect for the Lord, faithfulness to His truth, and submission to His will are some of those essentials that we will continue to emphasize.

I also hope that, in Christ, we begin to discuss the “solder and foil” of life in order to truly see what unites us. When we add this conversation to the one about our sincere empathy with outcasts, we will start to glue our pieces back together. Humpty Dumpty does not have to remain in shattered fragments.