Look at Me (May 2017)

His form moves increasingly closer; with each of our convergent steps, I sense the gradual splintering of my music-hypnosis that spouts from external wire veins into internal blood veins. Now the definition of his eyes emerges from their blurry remoteness, and I see them dodge hastily a fraction before my own act on their suspicion that the buildings on the opposite side of the street are tremendously enthralling.

He has never wronged me. His image jogs no vivid memories of pain or love or friendship or even acquaintance; I do not know his name, and he does not know mine. I had never seen him before, and yet the precise uniformity with which we dodged eye contact with each other implied that we had practiced this movement countless times.

We have mastered the art of not looking at each other.

How did disengagement become not just a cultural normality, but a respected and expected effort? I do not believe it came naturally – we have taken intentional care to transition from a relational, trusting, friendly culture to one that is detached, fearful, and generally self-centered.

When I first moved to Chicago, I remember being slightly surprised by how strongly my Bible school encouraged “poker-face” as a necessity for tackling city life. In the name of safety, maintaining a generally cold persona when outside the “Moody bubble” was elevated above practicing basic recognition of humanity with a smile — or simple eye-contact — to strangers passing by. I was even more surprised by how quickly I found myself adopting the poker-face I had so purposefully resist for so long. Every bus and train ride and stroll on the human-packed streets of Chicago finally impressed in me that to deviate from poker-face was superfluous and abnormal.

So, I fell in step with everyone else, treading down my inclination to act on the value I once held dear – to offer at least a simple smile or nod to the human beings I passed by. It was convenient. I could stay in my own little world – pretend that the music I was listening to was the soundtrack to my own biographical movie, go over my to-do list for the day, or simply think about nothing if I wished – all without interruption or exertion on my part. Safety is comfortable, and may even seem like the most responsible pursuit. But safety is a sugar-coated excuse for our fear.

We avoid eye-contact like we’re afraid.

We’re afraid – afraid that we might actually have to surrender up our own agenda, our own list of “to-do’s”, our own bubble of self-centeredness. Our fearful condition isn’t one to be pitied, for as harsh as it sounds (I’m preaching to myself), it’s selfish.

We avoid human interaction like the plague, and get angry when we’re disrupted from our one-person world. If we’re being honest, our time, thoughts, words, and interactions reflect that people are an interruption from the work that we so incessantly complain about, rather than the other way round.

We don’t want to have to answer any questions that would require us to step out of our world – our comfort zone. “Comfort zone” is no longer a metaphorical term, but a concrete, physical space we subtly yet ferociously defend from the invasion of someone else’s company.

When a chronically-bleeding woman reached out to touch Jesus, he could have easily and understandably ignored her. After all, he was surrounded by a crowd of people touching him on all sides. But He went out of his way to make her relationship priority over His task of moving ahead; He acknowledged her and cured her of disease.

When the rooster crowed a third time on the night of Jesus’ arrest, it would have been less agonizing for Him to avoid the eyes of Peter. He was already dealing with enough physical suffering at that moment without the additional pain of acknowledging a friend’s disloyalty. But He went out of His way to look at Peter – communicating painful, loving truth that would ultimately lead to Peter’s repentance and healing.

Jesus looked at people and He stopped for people. In fact, stopping was His normal; the getting and doing and going were just drawbacks he had to tolerate as a human on this earth. He stopped for the disciples and invited them to do life with Him. He stopped for the beggars and leapers and gave Himself out to them. He stopped in the mount of olives to talk to His father, knowing His persecutors were coming there to execute Him. He stopped, because the people He encountered as He was going were His destination.

I have never felt so alive as when I began to stop and look and to not avoid eyes – most powerfully when it required me to deviate from my one-person world, my self-motivated agenda. There is something more REAL in intentionality than most things I’ve experienced. And it seems to be far more difficult to experience reality when we are not experiencing other human beings. We are suffocating in our own little bubbles – in an effort to avoid the lives of others, our bubble is sucking the air out of us so that we are not fully living. And by protecting us from other people’s dirt and grit, our bubble ensures that our footprints and fingerprints never leave a trace of impact on this earth.

He has never wronged me; his image jogs no vivid memories of pain or love or friendship or even acquaintance; I do not know his name, and he does not know mine. I have never seen him before, and yet…

I stop, I look. I learn his name. This homeless man has not tasted the letters of his name for a very long time, because no one has cared to ask for it. I do not feel altogether comfortable, nor do I feel that his life fits perfectly into my schedule for the day. This interaction is messy and he doesn’t smell good and it is tiresome to try to make sense of his slurred words, but in the dirt and grit and inconvenience – I sense the presence of my Jesus most blatantly. His eyes reflect Jesus in the space where our two lives intersect, and now the interruption is my destination as life-dirt imprints on us both.