Beneath the surface

If it wasn’t the first time Matt appeared at our door, it was close. Halloween had arrived. The doorbell rang and there was Matt, held by his mother Ruth, and wonderfully adorned as a sunflower. All would have been well except that I, having always dressed for Halloween myself, had cut a couple of holes in an old bed sheet and was disguised as a ghost. I’m not sure that Matt would have recognized me in the first place, but the complete covering of my face just sent him over the edge. Immediate wails and tears resulted in me tearing the sheet off my head, but it was no use. The moment was spoiled for him and probably his mom too. I felt so badly and have never forgotten the lesson I learned that night. Sometimes what we can’t see beneath the surface can be awfully frightening.

Matt isn’t fond of me telling that story, even though he has no memory of it. I am just grateful that I had an opportunity to redeem myself as Matt grew up and we got to know one another as people, as people who cared about one another.

A few years ago we met up with Matt when he was in the state on business. It had been years since we had made contact. He was well into his adult years and we established a time to meet at a restaurant about halfway between Madison and Milwaukee. It was a wonderful evening as we shared stories and talked about the issues of the day. To renew that friendship after all those years and come to it as equals rather than a boy with a parent’s friends was enlivening and a gift.

Matt had become a well-traveled, successful man. It was fun to see how he interacted not only with us as equals but with others in the restaurant. It took us a while to even get to the menu because we were so busy catching up. In retrospect, that may have presented some irritation to our server, but get to it we did and began to place our order.

Matt was interested in ordering the walleye. Having grown up in South Dakota, he was no doubt remembering the fresh walleye fished out of the crystal waters of the upper Missouri River and was trying to base his decision on that comparison. Rightly so, he asked the server, “Where is the walleye sourced?” It was a sound question as not all walleye, although perhaps created equal, are able to get their own life bearings in clear, fresh water. It’s a good question to ask as we consider what’s below the surface of the waters where the fish are raised.

The server didn’t know and showed no interest in finding out. I think we all asked him to check with the chef. And we waited. And waited.

Eventually, he returned. We looked up expectantly. Personally, I thought he might say Canada or even northern Wisconsin. But as we looked up together, he simply said, “France.”

It was all we could do to hold back our laughter. Either the folks in the kitchen didn’t want us to know from where the fish had come or they didn’t know themselves. “France,” must have seemed a reasonable answer for a good but not upscale restaurant between Milwaukee and Madison. It must have seemed a respectable response no matter how ridiculous. Plus, who knows what was going on beneath the surface of a waiter who was trying to accomplish his work on an evening when he may very well have wanted or needed to be elsewhere?

Matt ordered the walleye anyway. He was a good sport. The walleye was passable but not good. Maybe it did come from France. If so, it must have been rejected by the superb French chefs we have experienced in our own travels.

But we were there for the conversation more than the food, for the beauty of looking one another in the eye after so many years. While food might bring us to a table together, it is the company rather than the nourishment that made the evening such a success.

Yesterday, I visited and became part of a circle of people engaged in spiritual support for one another. It was an inner city homeless shelter in the bowels of a large church. I had never been there before and when I entered, I bided my time for a while, sizing up the surroundings, the atmosphere, the people within the circle and others who took up spots outside of it. Some were stretched out in sleeping bags. Others were easily within earshot of the conversation but opted not to be part of it. I was somewhat surprised at the respectable quiet that was reserved in the room for the conversation.

Eventually, I worked my way into that circle too. By the time I got there, each person was sharing something about his or her week, about challenges in it; sometimes there was something about where or how they had experienced God. It was a mixture of homeless folks and volunteers for this wonderful ministry.

I listened intently as each person shared an experience. There were times I found myself wondering if the speaker was a homeless person or a ministry volunteer. That spoke volumes to me. We can’t gauge one another by how we look. We can’t size up someone because of some preconceived notions about what they are or from where they have come. There is too much going on beneath the surface of each one of us to make those judgments.

That’s probably part of the problem with incivility these days. We make assumptions about people without exploring beneath the surface to find out what they are really all about. We talk and talk but we don’t listen.

Parker Palmer, a Quaker elder and educator, has observed, “The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard and companioned exactly as it is. When we make that kind of deep bow to the soul of a suffering person, our respect reinforces the soul’s healing resources, the only resources that can help the sufferer make it through.”

One of the elements of the circle yesterday involved inviting each participant to write anonymously on a postcard a secret they would be willing to share as long as no one knew who wrote it. Listening to those secrets shared, including my own, more often than not in no way sorted out the homeless from the volunteers, the poor from the wealthy. But what it did accomplish was allow each of the people taking part or even just listening by the sidelines to witness to each of the souls there, allowing us to make a deep bow out of respect, aiding one another to make it through – perhaps even make it through just that morning.

Like the walleye supposedly sourced in France, we don’t, we can’t know what’s going on beneath the surface in one another’s lives. Even when we whip off the ghostly Halloween sheet to reveal a real person, there is a real soul inside that doesn’t necessarily need fixing, but just needs to be helped to make it through.

And sometimes, hearing that the walleye is sourced in France is an indication that there’s more going on beneath the surface than we would even imagine.

 

“Listen. Do you want to know a secret?” — The Beatles

“1 As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me continually,
‘Where is your God?’

11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.” — Psalm 42:1-3, 11

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