Meeting people meaningfully

Listen

How do we meet a stranger and have a meaningful relationship even for a brief moment? How do you get to really experience someone so intimately that you would never forget that experience and cherish that moment for the rest of your life? Is such meeting possible in our busy and complicated world?

Of course, it is not easy. We usually take long time to get to know someone to be close—never mind being intimate on any level (we reserve intimacy to people who are very close to us). It takes a long time to be close enough to share a little about us because revealing one’s true self is not that easy. Yet, once in a while we meet a person with whom we can be close right away as if we have been friends for a long time. Through experiences, we know this kind of closeness does not happen often.

Yet, for some of us, close intimacy is possible with many people. This is so because those who accept us are very open and willing to be vulnerable with us. We experience such intense closeness even with strangers when we are vulnerable and open to them. For example, when we go to help people in poor countries, we go there knowing nothing and with much fear. When we are vulnerable, they welcome us with open arms and allow us to be close and intimate with them. They help us with their openness and teach us to be intimate with them. We can also experience it when we visit friends in hospitals, or be with them when they are going through difficult times. So why can we not experience it regularly?

Many of us do not like to show our emotionally vulnerable side. We think that being vulnerable is like showing the world that we are weak. That is why we do not cry in front of others, do not display our angers, and do not share our sadness with just anyone. We feel uncomfortable showing our true selves. This guardedness also gives out the message to the world that we do not want others to share their vulnerabilities with us.

As Christians we think it is important for us to be honest, compassionate and being open to share with others all that we are. However, this view is hard one to live by in the world where we guard ourselves to show others that we are strong and have everything together.
One way of establishing this intimate relationship even with a stranger is to remember that everyone is created in the image of God. If I welcome, listen to and care for a stranger the way that I would with Christ, this intimacy is possible.

The difficulty is, we always see people the way they present themselves to be—not the way God created them to be in God’s own image. We do not spend our energy and effort to see beyond what they want us to see. Their make-ups and designer clothes hide the image that is of God from us in the same way we hide ourselves from others. If we spend time and energy listening to and being with a stranger as if we welcome God, then, our openness will invite even strangers to be vulnerable and share who they are, what they fear, love and care for in life, how they face life’s difficulties and why they have not been free to be who they were intended to be.

I see God’s beauty in each of you. I see how God instilled in you an image that is very special revealing God-self through your uniqueness. I hope you get to see others in the same way.