It was a mic-drop moment for me. In hearing the women who assisted Thecla by crying out “unholy judgment” and throwing petals, nard, cinnamon, and cardamom to create a perfume to lull the wild animals to sleep, I saw so many of us who refuse to see ourselves as separate from those who are and have been harmed and are experiencing or have experienced suffering.
I’ve always been sensitive. I’ve felt things so strongly that sometimes it made people think I was going overboard. Crying for people I’ve never met, celebrities whom I felt some otherworldly connection to, and having to ration my intake of news stories have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.
I remember, too, when my mom got sick. She said, “I didn’t worry about telling your brother, but I was concerned with how to tell you because I know how sensitive you are.” This was not to slight me though I initially took it as one. It was to let me know that my mom saw how she interacted with me might be different from how she interacted with my brother because she appreciated our differences.
My sensitivity has served me well. It has helped me to know when something doesn’t quite resonate for me. It has helped me to recognize when someone is hurt many times before others. It allows me to see through God’s eyes even when I don’t want to see.
It is not easy to see through God’s eyes. It is so easy to hate and to see the way the world sees. In fact, I have to catch myself when I hear about evil being done in this world but then, that sensitivity kicks in and says they are screaming for love, Traci. You know it. And it’s then that I realize what I heard today that I refuse to see another as separate from me.
This separateness we feel has been created by us. Some may say it started when Abel asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer is yes even though none of us wants to own that, myself included. We are called to love one another and that love will never truly flow until we recognize that there is no separation between where you end and I begin, as Marianne Williamson says A Course in Miracles reveals.
I didn’t always allow my sensitivity to show me what God sees. Like I said, I have to catch myself when I see what seem to be clear injustices and the infliction of suffering. It wasn’t until just before my mom got sick that I learned what it meant to see through God’s eyes. If you want an idea, check out the scene from The Shack where Mack is asked to judge his two children.
God sees us all as God’s creations. God grieves when we hurt one another just as any parent would be upset when one child harms another. God sees that the one who harms is the one who is calling out for love most because somewhere that person learned incorrectly that power, greed, and separating themselves from others by things like race, nationality, color, creed, socioeconomic status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion was the way to get ahead or the way to feel love or the key to being free.
God wants us to see, acknowledge, and appreciate our differences just as my mom noticed and appreciated the difference between me and my brother. It is not to put one over the other or to say that one is better than the other. It is to note that we were both aspects of her and my father just as we, humanity, are all aspects of God.
Recognizing what makes us unique while appreciating our sameness helps us all to recognize that none of us will feel true love or true freedom until we refuse to see another as separate from ourselves.