Same same, but different, but still same

This week I was on vacation in Croatia in Biograd na Moru. It was one of our best vacations in recent years, for multiple reasons. Turns out Croatia is an incredibly beautiful country. After many (small) adventures on Airbnb in past years, we finally found a really nice house this time. And then kids were older and handled travel much better than previously.

But also there were some spiritual lessons I feel like I saw exemplified this week. 

For our family, the trip was very much last minute. We didn't think about going to the seaside this summer for several reasons, including some health issues on my side, my work being a bit slow this year, and traveling with kids was quite difficult last year.

But we joined my wife's cousin, who had booked the trip months in advance. My in-laws also went, and some other relatives. We went with 4 cars and we had two apartments close to each other.

What got me thinking was how some of the differences between us had to be navigated more smoothly while others were fine to be left as that differences. 

We went in a group in the cars with our in-laws there we had to take into account their style, and they had to take into account our small kids and what not, because in general we kinda did stuff together.

But with the others, sometimes we met at the beach. We did one trip to Krka together (really nice, strong recommend), but otherwise we each did our thing: they wanted to see more beaches, further away, we stayed at the same beach nearby every day. 

And I think it's similar in spiritual matters. With people you have close fellowship you should probably navigate differences better, but with others it's fine to have even major differences in beliefs, interpretations and even way of living. Not all differences are ok, but I think more differences should be ok than what we're generally comfortable with.

I guess, it's similar in the body as well. Similar cells stick together better, most cells are probably surrounded by similar cells (in the same organ), but then you have cells at the boundaries between organs, or that have to interact with ones that are further away. Those cells might have different “priorities”, but they still end up working together, because they're in one body.