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Good morning.

Why can’t a woman be more like a man? Not my question, of course, but Professor Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady".

When I was a child, my father had a long playing record of songs from the show. White cover with black drawing on it and the legend "Original Broadway Cast Recording". Yet I’ve always thought of the musical as being an essentially British production, belonging entirely in Drury Lane.

Which is a fine example of the typical male ability to hold two, or even three! pieces of related information and never join them up.

So in the view of Professor Higgins, if everyone were more like a man, wouldn’t it be loverly?

Well of course it wouldn’t.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone were the same?

It’s a ridiculous question that doesn’t warrant serious thought – but then we look out from our own lives, at people who seem very different from us, and it may not seem so straightforward. Are we really comfortable in the presence of people who are very different to ourselves?

As a Christian, I think I have to take more seriously the belief that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God, no matter how different they may seem from me, and even no matter how far they’ve damaged that image. God loves everyone – even those who’ve utterly rejected that love, and that must affect the way I view everyone, no matter how different they are to me.

Lord God,

help me to value the wonderful variety of the human race,

give me so much of your love that I can show that love to others,

even those who unsettle me,

even those who are very different to me,

and those I find very hard to understand.

Amen.