Streams of Mercy

Years ago, decoupage was the favorite pastime of many of us. Favorite sayings or cutouts were glued to small boxes or plaques and then painted over with a special glue solution. My college roommate took a printed copy of one of my favorite sayings and made a small plaque for me, which I’ve kept to this day. That favorite saying was this: “You never understand another person until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird in Junior High School, and tucking these words into my heart: “You never really know someone until you understand things from their point of view, until you climb into their skin and walk around in it.” These thoughts have served me well in teaching, in ministry and in life.

In last month’s issue of The Presbyterian Outlook, I came across an article: “How to Love People,” by Charlene Jin Lee, a practical theologian and activist based in Los Angeles. In the thick of an unrelenting pandemic and in the bewildering aftermath of a contentious national election, a community organizer and Lee were charged with a project: “Create a community of belonging: among leaders in our multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-theological, multi-political presbytery.”

“You have to be with someone long enough.

You have to see someone closely enough

You have to listen – not speak – enough.

Oddly then, you will begin to see you. You in them.”

Lee goes on to say: “Buoyed by an unburdened thought that we are walking the same land beneath one expanse, your clenched grip on things that you were so afraid to lose loosens, and you bravely fall back and lean forward into the galaxy of grace … a galaxy not so beyond comprehension that you are made indifferent by its vastness, but a kind of a slow, communal highway where you needn’t worry about losing things or fear getting lost because there are others beside you.”

As the group continued to meet and work toward becoming the “community of belonging” they were charged to create, they made three commitments – tell the truth, trust ambiguity and keep confidentiality. An honest practice of these commitments proved to be enough for this diverse group of people to find their way toward one another. Their greatest discovery as they worked this process: “Belonging takes away our need to be right.”

“You have to be with someone long enough.

You have to see someone closely enough.

You have to listen enough.

Beloved, let us love.

We are all here.

We shall be glad indeed.”

May each of us take this lesson on “how to love people” to heart, and create a sense of belonging with our sisters and brothers – a sense of belonging that will take away our individual need to right, freeing us to be with and for each other.

Elizabeth