ASKING THE IMPOSSIBLE

There is an old Indian saying something to the effect that we cannot possibly understand another person until we have walked a mile in his moccasins. That means, of course, we will never understand that person because we cannot ever walk in another’s shoes. Often we think we can and sometimes we think we have because we have experienced something like what the other had. But even then, it is not the same.

   It’s like telling my wife that I understand what it is like to be pregnant because I have read a book on the subject, or that I know what it is like to have a period because I have had stomach cramps, or that I know what the pain involved in giving birth is like because I have had a kidney stone – all which I have. She would tell me that I don’t have a clue what any of it is like, which is the real truth.

   (As an aside, the above is proof positive that God is a male. It’s going to be tough enough on God explaining to women why only they had to have periods and babies while the men in their lives acted as if the worst part of pregnancy was their putting up with a sometimes-contrary wife. Imagine a female God trying to explain that to other females! I just thought I’d throw that in.)

   So often we make judgments about others when we truly have no way of understanding who they are or why they think or act the way they do. Years ago John Howard Griffin, a white journalist with an inquisitive mind dyed his skin black and as a black man traveled for six weeks through the 1950s South to experience what it was like to be a black man in the days of almost total segregation and subjugation. He wrote of his experiences in a book he titled Black like Me.

   Last year Bishop Geralyn Wolf, the Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island, spent part of her sabbatical disguised as a homeless woman and wandered the streets of New York and other large cities, staying in shelters, eating meals served to the homeless, even visiting Episcopal churches to see how truly welcoming they were to her.

   Both Griffin and Wolf learned and experienced much, perhaps even came close to understanding what it meant to be a black man or a homeless woman. But closeness doesn’t count. They could not be whom they pretended to be even as admirable as these attempts were. We can only be who we are and cannot understand what it is like to be someone else no matter how hard we try or how sincere our efforts.

   When we make judgments about others whom we cannot possibly understand, we often ask, even demand of them what is impossible. I cannot understand what it is like to be pregnant any more than my wife can understand why I sometimes think I understand her. The blessing and bane of humanness is our uniqueness. Trying to understand the other and pretending to walk in his or her shoes is vital in growing together as a community. But we will always come up short. If we remember that, we will be less judgmental, less demanding and certainly more understanding of the other. That is all the other asks of us and all we ask of the other, even as we are try to walk in each other’s shoes.           WJP