Practicing Informed Love

Today we had an important meeting with people I love. My stomach was in knots leading up to it for many reasons, most to do with past hurtful experiences and my own sense of disappointment after hours of hard work has been invested in something that apparently isn’t working for others. 

I surrendered my will, my disappointment and hurt, my shortcomings and my lack of true love and asked God to govern our time together.

As the meeting evolved we made painless progress. However what stood out for me was the poignancy when people who had been previously quiet shared how things were really going for them. A hush fell over the meeting as we all sensed these Holy words were hard to say. Some sentiments were echoed by others, and others offered different experienced realities. It was a beautiful moment where we were offered a peek through a window into one another’s present moment.

Perhaps that vulnerability can only come when the work has been done and we’ve all warmed up to one another in a space. However I would have loved to have known at the start of our conversations how everyone presented. I would have chosen different words and approaches - I think we all would have. 

‘Hello everyone, I come to this meeting feeling quite shaky, I’m processing hurt from previous meetings of a similar nature, I want my words to come from a place of love - and I’m struggling’. 

‘Thanks for that, I come energized and excited for a new season, I can’t wait to problem solve and do the best we can’

'Wow, I can barely put my thoughts in order, I come today feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted by the busyness of life, I’m here in body, but I feel like I have nothing to offer today’ 

'Thank you for sharing that - I feel exactly the same’

‘Guys, I feel like I’m burning out, please don’t ask anything of me today - it took all I had just to get here’

I wonder if from the outset we heard how others were presenting, we would conduct a meeting with tailored care and sensitivity. Sending encouraging words towards the people who were weary. We could lean on the ones full of enthusiasm that day to lighten the tone. We would keep our words gentle to the ones feeling anxious. Together, we could hold our hurting. 

In a way I believe we try to do this, an expected first question when we greet a fellow human is ‘how are you?’. I think maybe this inquiry had original intentions deeper than the polite small talk we engage with today. However with increasing busyness, the expected answer to give when someone zooms past with the perfunctory ‘Hi - How are ya?’ 

Is

'Good - and you?’ 

‘Yep - good ta’.

'Good' appears to be the correct response regardless of what is truly happening for anyone. I don’t think it’s from a lack of care, just a lack of time to stop and listen. Personally my preferred way of acknowledging another’s presence when I don’t have time to truly attend, sounds more like ‘Hi! It’s so good to see you’ or ‘Wow, that colour looks gorgeous on you’ or ‘Good morning - I hope the day goes well for you’. In this way I’m offering what I can, a truthful sentiment in the pleasure of encountering someone, yet not offering a space for communication I don’t have time for. 

This leads me to wonder what it would be like in those important moments when we have made the time to be present to one another, in meetings, over dinner, during break room chats or walking home from school - if we intentionally entered the time together enquiring ‘how do you come today?’ Or ‘what is happening right now for you?’ Or ‘what is the predominant emotion you are experiencing today?’ And then truly listening - and authentically sharing. 

Imagine us all being so vulnerable as to display the landscape of one’s life as it is placed in the context we are in together at that moment. 

To lay it all out there as it is, not for pity, or judgement, not asking for a solution or to be vindicated or as an excuse for bad behavior, but simply to open opportunity for greater understanding of one another. Could our interactions become a love fueled opportunity to extend a greater measure of grace, and to practice informed love - tailoring our posture, prayers and words as best we can to the one God places in front of us?