Not Everyone Is You
Perspective: Embracing Complexity
This week we’re exploring something obvious that we forget all the time…
People aren’t all the same.
Of course, we know that in theory.
But in daily life, we still tend to assume other people should process things like we do, communicate like we do, care about what we care about, and respond in ways that make sense to us.
Then, when they don’t, we get frustrated.
We call them dramatic. Cold. Immature. Needy. Rigid. Irresponsible. Difficult.
And sometimes they really may be difficult.
But sometimes they are simply different.
So this week, we’re practicing the spiritual discipline of perspective. We’re paying attention to the quiet ways we mistake our own normal for everyone’s normal.
Not to erase our needs.
Not to excuse harm.
Just to make room for the complexity of being human together.
Now, let’s see where difference has been asking us to widen our view.
Peace, Bo
www.evolvingchristianfaith.net
People are different
Day 1/5 (Awareness)
Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members yet one body.
—1 Corinthians 12:14–20 (NRSVUE)
Good morning,
It sounds obvious: people aren’t all the same.
But we forget it constantly.
We assume other people should process things like we do, need what we need, react how we react, and understand what seems obvious to us.
Then we get confused, frustrated, or hurt when they don’t.
This week, we’re paying attention to difference.
Not difference as a slogan.
Difference as something we encounter in real life, often before breakfast, in the people closest to us.
Awareness begins when we notice where we have been expecting sameness.
Journal prompt
Where have you recently expected someone else to think, feel, or respond the way you would?
A prayer to close
God of many members,
wake me from the illusion
that everyone must be like me.
Teach me to notice difference
without fear or contempt.
Amen.