The Practice of Encountering Others

As we continue looking at Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World, this week’s practice is that of Community, or “The Practice of Encountering Others.” This practice is about encountering others as the people they truly are, not just as means to get us to our end, or even as supporting players to our own stories. Taylor writes about the simple but profound idea that every individual is living their own story, and while these stories are all ultimately connected, it is so meaningful, yet so difficult, to even fathom someone else as the “lead” in life.

The practice of community is similar to the practice of paying attention in that it calls us to an acute awareness of what is happening around us, although this time we are to be focused on what is happening in the lives of individuals. Taylor mentions stopping to simply look the grocery clerk in the eye, and letting yourself be aware that she has a home, a family, struggles, and joys that have nothing to do with you, or even with the role that she is currently serving. Many of  us shy away from this practice because of either time or the level of intimacy that accompanies such thoughts, but neither are really good excuses. God’s image is imprinted on each of God’s children, and as we truly encounter another person, if only for a second, we also encounter God.

At our lunchtime Bible study at CARES this week, we discussed the story of the Syrophoenician woman from Matthew 15, in which the Disciples (and Jesus) turned away a woman because she was “Other.” While the theological implications here are large, if we save the discussion of what Jesus was really saying to the woman (and to his followers) for another day, we can at least agree that the Disciples were truly annoyed with this woman, both because of her race and her persistence, and did truly wish that she would leave. They did not see the image of God in her because they were too preoccupied, because they had too many preconceived notions about “her people,” and because she was a distraction to the task at hand.

While it is so easy for us to criticize the unkind words that the Disciples tossed her way, I’m afraid that we still participate in this action today. I hope that we would never go so far as to say that Jesus wasn’t “for” particular groups of people (although some readily do share this terrible message.) I think for most of us, it just looks like ignoring people—not even necessarily because of their “otherness” as much as for the fact that we just don’t want to have that kind of interaction with any person, similar to ourselves or not.

I think we can all at least think of one time in our lives where another human has been annoying, and we wished they would just leave us alone. (The struggle for some of us may be to think of times when other humans haven’t been problematic!) However, when we simplify this message, we come to realize that as we are rejecting others, we are also rejecting God’s image, which isn’t ever something we would want to admit, I imagine.

While it is both impossible and somewhat unhealthy to expect a deep connection with every face that we encounter, I do think we can move toward intentionality about having that connection with some. The more willing we are to share our lives, our stories, our “leads” with others, the more rich our lives will be, and the more we will look like God, because we begin to resemble not only God, but also the amazing diversity found in God’s children.