In three separate conversations today and yesterday, I have been reminded of how deeply we long to be seen. Beneath our various strategies for self-protection we reside as vulnerable souls who long to be known in our complexity amidst the swirl of everything-ness that comes with living. We all yearn for grace.
This has me pondering three wishes or prayers or whatever we may call this yearning.
1. May I be a person who sees and listens beneath all the layers of anger and aggression in our world just now, to see the humanity of the other, how we are all more similar than different.
2. May I find and fill my life with people who are willing to see and know me beneath my flaws and defenses and quirky annoying ways of being. (And yes, thank you, Lisa McMinn, for being an exemplar of this).
3. May we, in our communities, somehow muddle through this messy post-pandemic, polemical, pseudo-prophetic era to see how our common human yearning for compassion, understanding, and love are even more central to our identities than the markers we use to define our identities.
Comments