The five young boys, clearly siblings or otherwise family, live eight houses down.
We hear their joyous laughter echoing down the street in spring and summer as they ride their bikes or race each other or run around the backyard. Those boys are my barometer for summer: when they started playing outside every day, I know the season has officially started.
Yesterday evening, when I was out on my walk, they were in the front yard as I passed by. They had been kicking a soccer ball around with ferocity; as I approached, the game went quiet. I heard, before I passed by them, a hasty and whispered conversation.
I could tell, because of their sidelong glances and the way their voices lowered as I approached, that I was the subject of their chat.
I wondered what was going on. But just as I hit the edge of their yard, I watched the smallest boy—in size only, because he was clearly the Captain Commander of their little group—yank the soccer ball out of the hands of the tallest. In a hissed whisper that I was not intended to overhear, he said: “You will not kick that soccer ball until the lady has passed! What if you accidentally kicked it at her? You will wait!”
Delighted half to death, I paused as I passed and addressed him. “That’s really kind of you to be so courteous,” I told him. “I really appreciate it.”
He gave me a big beaming smile. “You’re welcome!” And then: “God bless you to have a good evening!”
These moments offer hope.
In the congregation at my church, there is a woman who sits about three rows back from us. On our first visit, she asked my name and my husband’s, and she remembered them. We chat with her every Sunday. Recently, we missed a few Sundays due to travel and other events. On the Sunday we returned, she edged up to the pew and whispered fiercely, “I am glad you are still here.”
We feel largely invisible to the congregation. But to her, we matter. We have not told her, but she is one of the reasons we stay.
My father’s ninety-year old neighbor still calls him when she receives a card in the mail from me: it delights her that much. I still have a copy of the perfectly-chosen, clearly-thoughtful book an acquaintance once sent me when I was going through a hard time.
It doesn’t take much. I think too that in darker times, it takes even less.
The first Christian witness—before words, before gestures, before declarations and proclamations and testimonies—is attention. The act of turning one’s eyes away from all the things that compete for notice, our phones and our TVs and our social media and our texts, and see whatever is around us.
A neighbor.
A manicurist.
A sad friend.
The cheerful one who fell silent.
The congregant.
We don’t need to go anywhere. We don’t need to seek the mission field. In this miserable age the first act of radical love is simply to lift your head. To pay attention. And then, to the extent you are able, to do what is needed.
Oftentimes, what is needed isn’t even material. We tend to focus often on the material in ministry, and this isn’t wrong. We’re God’s hands and feet. People need food and clothing, and gas cards, and medical equipment, and shelter. But they also, just as often and just as critically, need to feel heard and seen. Recognized. Providing for people’s needs acknowledges their dignity—and this includes being attentive to them, seeing them at all.
I frequently receive communications from disgruntled students. It’s part of being a college professor. They’re mad about a grade they didn’t like, or disagree with feedback on a paper, or they’re afraid of failing, or they’re freaking out because they missed two weeks of classes. They call me or come to my office.
I used to prepare for these calls with solutions. I would come up with responses to rationalize my feedback, calculations to help them understand their grade, an action plan so they could get their coursework back on track. But not long into my teaching career I realized that more than anything, they wanted to feel heard. They wanted me to listen to their story, whatever it is, and after I was able to do that they were more open to resolution.
What I’m trying to say, I suppose, is that nothing is too small. Even the act of looking matters. I would argue it matters especially. In an age that grows darker and darker, and more and more overwhelmed by technology that exists to trap our gaze, looking up to see other people is an act of quiet Christian resistance and grace.
I mean to practice it as much as I can.
Samaritan's Song 