When she showed me the picture, my face brightened — because that is what you do when a child shows you their creations.
It was obviously a person, about that there was no doubt. Who it depicted was less clear. Perhaps a friend? Perhaps someone from a show she watches? Perhaps a family member?
“They look so happy!” I say. “Who is it?”
“It’s you, daddy! You can tell by the skinny head!”
This I take in stride and with curiosity — because that too is what you do with a child who is showing you their creations (despite the howling laughter from elsewhere in the room).
“My skinny head?” I ask. “I didn’t know I had a skinny head. Do you have a skinny head too?”
“No,” she says. “My head is perfect.”
And that — friends — is why you might have caught me looking strangely at the shape of your head sometime this past week. (And perhaps why you will now look at mine strangely on Sunday).
We can be quite easily suggestible. Sometimes it doesn’t take much of a push to move us or influence us. And I don’t think that’s because of a lack of a center, or foundation, or personal insecurity. I think it is more often simply that something in us knows we aren’t aware of everything — we’re just too busy, or distracted, or interested in other things, or simply finite. So it doesn’t take much for you to simply notice that you’ve never paid much attention to the shape of your own head.
Now I believe — for all that seems to be wrong about the world — that most people would sooner do good to you than do harm. That doesn’t mean they (and we) are not doing harm to others, but I persist in my belief that for most people (including you and I) that harm is more a matter of ignorance or that “tilting” of suggestibility than of any inner orientation.
Following the parable of the dishonest manager, the gospel of Luke has Jesus saying “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light” (Luke 16:8 NRSVue). It is a sad fact that other powers seem to more effectively manage the present than the church of Jesus Christ. We seem to always be playing catch-up, and maybe Jesus is naming that it has always been that way.
But if that is what Jesus is naming, he is illuminating it so we know it doesn’t have to stay that way.
What might it look like to live lives that were “suggestible” towards good? What might it mean for us to have our inner and outer lives “tilt” towards compassion and kindness? Might the exposure of our “big heart” lead others to examine their own? What if we could find a way to live more fully in the present — embracing it more completely — as part of both our way of living and as our way of advancing the Cause of Christ?
Remember, we’re all in this together.