Sunday, December 20, 2009
Don't Make Eye Contact
In the movie, Continental Divide, the late John Belushi tries to explain to his reclusive girl friend from the Rocky Mountains how to survive when she visits him in Chicago. One tip is to look down when you’re walking and never make the mistake of actually looking at someone in the eyes.
I had only been the youth minister at St. John Neumann in St. Charles, Illinois for about 6 months. I called one of my adult leaders and told them I was sick and unable to attend the Sunday Outreach. I told him to greet the speaker who was coming and that the other leaders should just run the meeting as usual without me. What I didn't tell them was that I was the speaker.
Dressed as "Ray" a man down on his luck, I showed up outside the church in the blowing snow and cold. In those days, I smoked a cigarette to further confuse people who might suspect it was me. The crowd of 300 teens and 60 adult leaders walked right by me that night. No one laughed at me. No one told me to leave. No one would look at me. I stood there in character puffing away on my cigarette (trying not to cough) and thinking to myself..."Why don't you look at me? Why don't you say, 'hi'?" Then I thought, "I'm doubling all your service hours!"
Then once everyone was inside, a woman (not on my leadership team) came outside. She looked at me and said, "What is your name?" I told her I was Ray. She asked if I needed anything and I told her that I was there to share my story with the teens. She hugged me. Then she told me I should come inside where it was warm and that she would get me a coffee until it was time for me to speak. Why her? Why this woman and not any of the other 369 people gathered that night?
Because. She had her own story. I didn't find out until days later. She had been in an abusive relationship. She faced the tough choice like many other women. Do I stay in the abuse, or leave and risk poverty and homelessness? One day she had enough and out of fear for her two small girls, she left. She lived with her daughters in a car for two months. (Before my eyes were opened, I probably would have thought she was a bad mother for living in a car with two little girls.) She eventually found an apartment and a decent job. This was many years before she came outside that snowy night in compassion to bring me inside. When I came to know her as one of my adult leaders, she was a successful woman and had raised two fine girls (my peer ministers) in St. Charles, Illinois.
As the Native American saying goes, "Walk a mile in another man's moccasins before you criticize." Doing so changes the way we see. And, it gives us the courage to look up from our shoes and into the eyes of another.
I had only been the youth minister at St. John Neumann in St. Charles, Illinois for about 6 months. I called one of my adult leaders and told them I was sick and unable to attend the Sunday Outreach. I told him to greet the speaker who was coming and that the other leaders should just run the meeting as usual without me. What I didn't tell them was that I was the speaker.
Dressed as "Ray" a man down on his luck, I showed up outside the church in the blowing snow and cold. In those days, I smoked a cigarette to further confuse people who might suspect it was me. The crowd of 300 teens and 60 adult leaders walked right by me that night. No one laughed at me. No one told me to leave. No one would look at me. I stood there in character puffing away on my cigarette (trying not to cough) and thinking to myself..."Why don't you look at me? Why don't you say, 'hi'?" Then I thought, "I'm doubling all your service hours!"
Then once everyone was inside, a woman (not on my leadership team) came outside. She looked at me and said, "What is your name?" I told her I was Ray. She asked if I needed anything and I told her that I was there to share my story with the teens. She hugged me. Then she told me I should come inside where it was warm and that she would get me a coffee until it was time for me to speak. Why her? Why this woman and not any of the other 369 people gathered that night?
Because. She had her own story. I didn't find out until days later. She had been in an abusive relationship. She faced the tough choice like many other women. Do I stay in the abuse, or leave and risk poverty and homelessness? One day she had enough and out of fear for her two small girls, she left. She lived with her daughters in a car for two months. (Before my eyes were opened, I probably would have thought she was a bad mother for living in a car with two little girls.) She eventually found an apartment and a decent job. This was many years before she came outside that snowy night in compassion to bring me inside. When I came to know her as one of my adult leaders, she was a successful woman and had raised two fine girls (my peer ministers) in St. Charles, Illinois.
As the Native American saying goes, "Walk a mile in another man's moccasins before you criticize." Doing so changes the way we see. And, it gives us the courage to look up from our shoes and into the eyes of another.
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