What makes up a person if not for their experiences? Why are some able to be so vulnerable when others shut everyone out? What makes us fight or run or freeze? What gives us joy and sorrow?
Sometimes, I almost wish I could be like Sherlock Holmes. I know he's a fictional character, but even so, I marvel at things that can be discovered through looking closely at the details.
Do you see others? (And I'm talking about the kind of "seeing" that is described in the movie Avatar -the one with the blue people- where its deeper than looking with our eyes. Its accepting who that person is.) I ask that question, because many times, I walk through a store and am in task-mode. Sometimes, when around others that I've known my entire life, I'm going through the motions and don't take time to see them.
Once, a recent friend asked me if I had ever done ballet. I said, "yes, when I was maybe 3 or 4 years old. How did you know?" He replied that he noticed how I held my hand and fingers in a particular way. He related it to someone else he knew who had done ballet. What?! Something so small, but he'd noticed. People remember when someone takes time on them, when someone notices them, and when someone sees them.
In such a generation that is so focused on themselves, it seems like they are crying out to be noticed. I've been trying to ask more questions about them. When I do, I see looks that are slightly taken back from the fact that I'm asking about their lives. As much as I want to be seen sometimes, this life is ultimately not about me and my glory. When I ask about others and find myself investing in them, I hope that I can honor God through the process.
If people are yearning for a chance to be noticed and to know that they are special, then why shouldn't that be a way for us to decrease and Him to increase? Let us see each other in love, trying to understand motivations, and turning the attention towards the One who created us and was willing to die so that we could know His love.
