My mother, Donna Rial Baker, always told me, to build great relationships keep in mind...it’s not about I feel about other people or how other people feel about me. It’s about how other people feel about themselves when they’re around me. She always told me that. That doesn’t mean I always remember.
Danny
Mack, a pastor and leader I’m proud to call friend, told me I’m not a human
having spiritual experiences...I’m a spirit having human experiences...
Sometimes it seems like the human sure is experiencing a lot.
A great principal for whom I once worked told me, "Emily, we are perceived by our actions, not our intentions." (There's a good story that goes with that one, I'll write about some day.) I generally forget that one too...until it's too late.
Jesus
Christ tells us to pray for our enemies...to do good to those that mean us
harm... He tells us that. But I don’t always listen.
Man...batting
a thousand here, huh?
Sometimes
I find myself racking my brain for answers...and lately it’s to the question,
“Why doesn’t this person like me?!”
I
mean...I like me... I didn’t like me very much in junior high but that’s a
different post for a different day. I
know I’m not the coolest, smartest, funniest, or even sweetest person out
there... definitely not the most organized or responsible... and I’m a terrible
housekeeper... but I think I’m generally likable... so why do I still have
enemies?
I
don’t want enemies. I've heard other people say things like, "Man, I don't care what other people think of me...that's on them." And maybe they really feel that way. I, however, will admit it, in writing: I, Emily Ann Rial Christensen, do
solemnly swear... I care about what other people think of me.
Not
in the shallow...I care what people think of my looks/clothes/accent/taste in
music sense. And not in the sense that I'm going to become some inauthentic version of myself just to please others. But I do care about how I am perceived...how my actions and words are interpreted and why they are interpreted that way...and how that makes other people feel...I do care about that. After all, isn't that how we actually determine who we like and who we don't like? It's about how we feel about ourselves when we're around them.
I don't want to be hurtful. I want to be liked. I want to be valued.
So
maybe the biggest mistake is racking my brain for answers.
Because
when I ask my brain...the human responds. The human rolls her eyes, and folds
her arms (I don’t know about your human but mine is perpetually 15, has a
southern attitude and a sarcastic tongue.) and says things like:
*Haters
gonna hate!
*You
can’t make everyone happy!
*Their
loss!
The
human makes me feel tough, like I don’t really care, when down, not so deep, I
actually do care, much more than the human would like to admit.
And
while there is truth to the idea that not everyone is going to like me...does
that mean I just give up? Is
that what Jesus would do?
Maybe
instead of racking my brain, I should be searching my heart. The heart knows
what the human does not care to hear. And if I listen intently and
intentionally, I can hear a much calmer and wiser voice prevail over the
human’s snark.
It’s
the voice of the spirit. It’s there all along...but my human just has such a
big mouth.
My
heart tells me to pray...but not to pray that they will like me... that they
will “get” me... that they would be nicer to me...
Oh,
I’ve prayed that prayer...the prayer for myself... the prayer that God would
change their hearts. I prayed fervently and sincerely...I sincerely needed them
to change. And I waited. I waited and waited and waited. And then one day, out
of the clear blue, guess what happened...
Absolutely
nothing.
We’ve
all done it...prayed the human prayer.
But
the prayer of the spirit is different.
The
prayer of the spirit is reflective. It asks me to reflect on how others may
feel when they’re in my presence. It insists I pray for peace for those who do
not wish me well, and that I pray, for myself, a better understanding of how to
live this calling...to shed the mask and to BE love.
The
prayer of Saint Francis sounds, to my heart, much more like the prayer of a
spirit having a human experience...like someone who genuinely cares about
others with no ulterior motives...like someone who racks her heart for answers:
The
Prayer of Saint Francis
Lord,
make me an instrument of your peace:
where
there is hatred, let me sow love;
where
there is injury, pardon;
where
there is doubt, faith;
where
there is despair, hope;
where
there is darkness, light;
where
there is sadness, joy.
O
divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to
be consoled as to console,
to
be understood as to understand,
to
be loved as to love.
For
it is in giving that we receive,
it
is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
