When I wrote for a conservative journal several years ago, one day my editor asked me to become more combative against “liberals.” When I told him I was not good at that, I heard myself say something I did not know before that moment: “God’s signature is written across every human heart; I’d rather speak to that signature.”
To my surprise, he said, “Well, we sure need someone around here who can do that!” The subject never came up again.
After a long estrangement from an old friend, I turned a corner one day and ran right into him. When he smiled, I suddenly remembered who he really was. Why did I forget he carried the signature? Because it’s so easy. We live in a thick fog of accusation that pulls us into believing the worst of anyone who might be other than we are.
That’s not sane. As Michael Jordan explained about why he wasn’t an activist, “Republicans buy sneakers too!”
Our opponents are never as bad or as lost as we imagine. When people appear irredeemably dark or dangerous, it’s usually because we stumble into agreement with the accusations and anger that always swirl in the atmosphere. Rampant and furious dehumanization steals from our future.
Higher Ground
In 2009, during a trip to Jordan, I met a Palestinian Muslim. Ibrahim and I spent many hours together in restaurants, busses, and walking together throughout the country. At first, we spoke to each other from deep inside our own caves. But then, like Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, we each slowly stepped from the shadows into the light.
One day, when Ibrahim told me about his son, who had lived with a chronic illness all his life, he recalled the night “Allah came to my house and healed my son.” My eyes burned as we walked back and forth across our common real estate. We found a heart connection within that signature, that too-good-to-be-true joy of God coming to your home.
We each found lift up above our religious, political, ethnic, and national borders. We stood together on higher ground.
How Do We Speak to the Signature?
When the Apostle Paul spoke at the Areopagus (in Acts 17), he did not react to their polytheism. He first recognized his and their common fatherhood in God. He also assured them God was near to them. He spoke words of life to everyone gathered there.
To live a life that is true we must get up above the mud rut labels so we can see God’s signature written across humanity. Everyone we meet carries it. Because God created and preceded us to that person, He already communes with him or her. We just need to see and love them as He does.
As Goethe famously said, “Treat an individual as he is, and he will remain as he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
If you speak to the signature, you might call new life into existence; you may even create a path to higher ground for the one standing in front of you.
Finally, I do not believe everyone can or should “speak to the signature.” Some can; most can’t. I’m just suggesting the possibilities of getting up above earthbound prejudices and reactions. If we find that zone where we can think clearer, see further, and hear deeper, we might find a new way of viewing God’s marvelous creatures.
Including your cranky neighbor, boss, competitor, or your daughter’s boyfriend.
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