Maltesers

What is it about Maltesers that makes them more-ish? I am asking to see if there is any science to defend my compulsion to finish a box of the little brown devils on the same day as I opened them. Sunday was the time this last happened. It was Father’s day. The box was given and received as a small token of gratitude. My justification is that as they are offered in love - I need to demonstrate my thankfulness for the gift without inordinate delay.    
On Sunday past, I spent a few minutes looking at the cards accompanying the Maltesers, reading the scribbles of grandchildren who wished a happy Father’s day to “Papa”. Another card addressed me as Dad and Grandfather.  I am a person who tends to keep my birthday and Father’s Day cards. They offer a small potted history of my life. I took the opportunity to mull over those sent on my 65th birthday and discovered something remarkable. As well as cards addressing me as a friend, I had cards wishing me a great day as a Son, a Brother,  a Husband, a Dad, an Uncle and a Papa.  It struck me that although I had started life as a son, over time I developed a range of different identities, each one  seamlessly linking me specifically to different people.  I began to wonder how I can maintain so many variant identities at the one time. How do I know when I have to choose one over the other? Then it struck me. I don’t do the choosing.  When I am with my grandchildren I am Papa. That was the role in which they first encountered me and the one in which we interact. They know I am a both a dad and husband of course but those multiple identities somehow do not confuse them. It’s just how it is – who I am and have always been. They know I am not only a Papa , but to those five little angels that’s the one they see.
Last week we saw the outworking of a failure to recognise the strength in multiple identities when violence erupted in our streets, Why? Because some people’s identities were seen, in a binary fashion, as either “one of us” or one of them”. Despite having other identities shared by many of those causing the disturbances – grandparent, son, daughter, parent, fellow worker, friend – the identity causing the problem was “being different”.  An identity projected on them by others. An identity that should be seen as a gift became a threat because of fear. Fear has the need to be explained or it can seem irrational and so the justification is simple. They’re different than us. We fear difference. Really?
As civil rights activist Audrey Lorde once said. “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
Vive la difference.