Schaetzen Lernen: Learning to Treasure

I searched this morning on hulu for some smut to entertain me as I got ready for the day. The Bachelor won (and I'm hooked). It's alluring that for no money and full participatory consent, I get to judge (poorly) perfect strangers. I shall not further degrade myself by posting said judgments. However, the experience brought to mind something I've been mulling over.

You love the folks you really know.

It's kind of odd. Reason might argue that the more one understands about imperfections, the less disillusioned one is, the less one would enjoy a thing. For example, the PC. But not with people. With people it goes quite the other way if you let it.

If you let it. That's a key. If you write people off too soon, you don't really get to know them, and you don't really ever get to see them clearly. Oscar Wilde said, "To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. And one does not see anything until one sees its beauty." When you truly understand something, you'll see the good in it.

Seeing the good, I think that's love. Seeing the good and the bad and focusing on the good, that's Christlike love.

Christ knows us better than anyone. He knows our past, our present, our future. He knows our potential. He also knows our faults. He could write books about our faults. But, for the most part, I think He finds that unproductive because it doesn't coincide with His goals. His focus is on extending the good, using the good, enjoying the good.

I wonder what we'd find if we could just get our little hearts to focus on the good. To wait long enough, ask enough questions, spend enough time to really know the good. And, because it's a mixed bag, you'll find the bad. That's what makes a whole person. But seeing the whole, the bad might not seem quite so relevant.

When you really know someone, you understand and make allowances for their faults. You love them despite their faults. When you really know someone, you remember the times when they've acted nobly. When you really know someone, you've been through something together -- something you don't want to give up on a whim (read: small fault). When you really know someone and someone says something untrue about them, you defend them because you understand their intent. Because when you really know someone, you're in their corner.

So when Mother Theresa said, "If you judge someone [poorly] you have no time to love them," I must agree. If you can just wait a little longer before disapproving, you might be surprised.

I've learned this first hand at my job. I have to work with whatever client I'm assigned; I can't write people off. I can't go to my supervisor and say, "I need someone who's got it together just a bit more." The chaos is apparent. Stacks-of-documents apparent, hours-of-phones-calls-explaining-the-issues apparent. But no one is all bad. And I've never had a client who wasn't a little good. I've found that the longer I've worked with a client -- regardless of issues -- the more I care about him. The thing that makes the difference in how I feel about them is time. Because it takes time to know someone.

In German when we care about someone, we say we've (literally translated) "learned to treasure." Learned. Learning takes time and an open mind.

I hope to fall in love oftener now. Like the Bachelor seems to.

Foot note: The therapist in me requires me to say that although we might think to love everyone, we probably shouldn't trust everyone.