Monday, December 05, 2005

Seeing Jesus in Everybody

Mother Teresa once said:

“I believe in person to person. Every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is the one person in the world at that moment.”

I know that I’ve said many disparaging things about Christians and Christianity over the years. But if every Christian saw Jesus Christ in every person and acted accordingly, nary an unpleasant word would you hear me utter about the Christian faith or about those who embrace it. Indeed, I would almost certainly be Christian myself and using my vanishingly small talents to draw others to the faith. But even if most Christians don’t see and love people the way Mother Teresa did, this doesn’t mean that I can’t, even if I never call myself Christian, and even if I continue to harbor grave misgivings about institutionalized versions of the faith.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I saw a beautiful story once about a family with a small child eating dinner when s drunk came to the child and all she wanted to do was hug him. The mother was initially disturbed by this but then saw the love from a child given unconditionally to another human she was moved to tears. I don't know if it is a true story or one of those urban legends but I would like to believe there are more people loving one another than not. I tend to see the good in everybody which can sometimes get me in situations that are not quite good for me. I had one today as matter of fact. I was doing some errands and there was a man needed gas money to get home. Instead of just giving him money I took the time to get his can and went and filled it up for him. I actually had someone (a very large loud man) follow me to the gas station and give me some nonsense about how I held up traffic so that I could help a bum what was I thinking.