I was talking with a good friend this morning. He was feeling fatigued talking with hateful people. Alas, I don’t think I was appropriately empathetic for I have experienced the same fatigue and frustration. Instead I challenged Him to take a different perspective. While I was too quick to offer a “solution”, I know there is a deep truth which transforms our day to day experience.
We were made in the image of God. Then we walked away from Him, breaking His heart, our character, and the world we live in. The thing is, in the brokenness is much of the original beauty.
Just as when a cracked mirror lets you see a reflection, so flawed people still reflect the glory of God. My dear friend Lynne Fox is fond of pointing out that there is nothing uniquely evil, rather evil corrupts something that at its heart is good.
Seeing those bits of God’s image, the spark of the divine, pick your favorite phrase, in the people we interact with changes everything!! I think this is one of the secrets of effectively living into the Kingdom of God, to experience the “Camino Spirit”.
Jesus saw the flawed reflection of God in people. You can see it in his compassionate responses to people and when he called them to something better.
I believe that many of the great spiritual leaders were able to see people in this way. Mother Teresa, inspired but Matthew 25:40 wrote
We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. That’s why we are able to see Him in the broken body, in the abandoned child, in the hungry man. Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
C.S. Lewis wrote about seeing truly in his essay The Weight of Glory. Thomas Merton is reported to have had this perspective. The book Abandon to God, recounts how people felt Oswald Sanders was totally present and focused on them. I wonder if the reason he could be so focused was he was seeing God in that other person and that God was right there, in that moment.
I have found that when I go looking for God’s image in people, I am able to find it, and my time with the other person is significantly better. If I am not intentionally looking for the good it’s all too easy to notice the things which irritate me, to see flaws, and to find ways to be disappointed.
I am sure I am just scratching the surface with this post. I am going to come back sometime later and try to flesh this out more… but even if it’s incomplete, this too important to delay a post.
