This might be a hard post to read. It was a hard one to
write, mainly because I had a
destination most uncertain. I knew I wanted to sort these ideas out and writing
in the best way I have of doing that. So hear goes.
Back in the mid-nineties I ran a resource center for
low-income job seekers. When I took the job I knew it would challenge me. I can
talk a good game about helping people and the dignity of all, but I knew this job would test
my patience and my so-called heart. Then
I remembered something I learned in fourth grade religion class. I learned that
you should look for Jesus in everyone you meet. That’s how worried I was; I
decided to try it, this relic from elementary school. So I looked into my
clients’ eyes, only half believing that I would see anything there but eyes, yet
I saw more. I saw Jesus. I saw the incarnate Savior of the world looking back
at me. Every. Single. Time.
Part of me felt I had learned a fabulous trick for helping with my work; the other part of me realized that I had learned even more. I
knew then, with no equivocating, that Christ came into the world to save
humankind and that a glimmer of his humanity is visible in every one of us. I saw
that we are all one, united by this one Being. We toss the term “Body of
Christ” around pretty easily but there are huge implications for us and for our
world in this tiny fact: we are one.
Then and now, most of my interactions with people are
mechanical. Pleasantries at the check-out counter. A wave to a neighbor. Even
daily arrangements with my husband: “Do you want wine with dinner?” I
understand this is the way the world is; I have no need to make every
interchange a soulful moment of deep realization. Nevertheless, I can’t go too
long without finding the face of Christ.
And I wonder how it happens for other people, how an
authentic recognition can occur, how people can grasp the truth of each other,
with or without church or theology.
The great Constantin Stanislavsky (pictured above) tackles this problem
through the discipline of the theater. In his magnificent work, An Actor Prepares, Stanislavsky strives
to contain the spiritual energy that is exchanged between people. He claims
that this is the essence of being, of humanity, and that it is necessary for
any genuine portrayal on the stage. To him, the theater is an effort to capture
human-ness. He said, “What
is important to me is not the truth outside myself, but the truth within
myself.”
The
effort that Stanislavsky made to reveal this truth to himself, to his students and,
ultimately, to the audience seem to be akin to my efforts to find Christ in my
neighbor. I will go even further and
suggest that everyone on earth has, inside of them, a similar desire. When characters are revealed on stage, and on
screen, what we see is ourselves, our large, complete selves. This is truth. It
can feel good or bad, but it is felt. We can intellectualize about it, we can
deconstruct it, but it is primarily a felt experience.
But
I wonder: How can something that is patently false, made-up, contrived, like a
play, deliver truth? Shouldn't we come away from any drama telling ourselves
that life isn't like that and that we’ve wasted our time? Read what Frederick
Buechner says,
“If we are to
love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With
our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say, like artists we must see
not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is
love that is the frame we see them in.” from Beyond Words
Or as Psalm 16
reminds us: My heart teaches me night
after night.
In Part II of this essay, I will be taking these concepts a bit further. Please come back for it.
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