According to the Harvard Business Review, the Ford Motor Company is trying to live out its founder’s philosophy to “get the other person’s point of view.”
Its staff of mostly male engineers was asked to wear a device that allows them to experience symptoms of pregnancy firsthand: back pain, extra weight, being off balance. They can even feel the baby kicking.
The idea is to get them to understand the challenges that pregnant women face when driving. Give them credit. They are trying to walk in another person’s shoes, even if sometimes it’s an uncomfortable fit.
Harper Lee writes in her classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, that “You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
In Jesus, God became flesh, and put on shoes much too small. God knew sorrow as Jesus experienced loss. God knew oppression as Jesus chafed under Roman occupation. God knew homelessness when Jesus had no place to lay his head.
Christians often say “I want to be like Jesus.” Are we prepared to put on an uncomfortable skin?
The author of Hebrews writes “Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured” (13:3).
This is a call for us to overcome our assumptions and put aside our expectations, and to put on the mercy and compassion that allows us to see beneath the surface to deeper truth.
We are all more than we appear. When a man looks at a woman, she is that, and she is so much more. Same when a women looks at a man. When a person of one race looks on a person of another, or a different sexual orientation, they are that, and so much more. When we look on someone differently-abled, or struggling with addiction, or homeless, they are that, and so much more.
The person who hurt you is that. And they are more than the pain they caused. There is a bigger story to all of us.
In faith, to see someone as God sees them is to know they are so much more than what we can see. It’s to see them how we are like them, and could be just like them. Realizing that we might have walked in their shoes is a first step to loving them.
To hear Jeremiah’s words, “The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” invites us to remember that many who abuse others were themselves abused, and that many addicts are children of addicts. It’s not an excuse, but it is understanding, a step toward compassion.
We might remember that people rarely choose to be hungry. Obesity can develop from eating unhealthy food that is cheaper than nutritious food. You can eat too much, and still starve to death. A California experiment had people feed their families on the average food stamp benefit per household, about $1.40 per person, per meal. Just imagine. Would that help you understand hunger?
Look at that homeless family sleeping in their car. Today, there is not one county in the country where a minimum wage earner can afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment. In San Francisco, you would need to work a minimum wage job 203 hours a week. That’s the equivalent of 5 full-time jobs. There are literally not enough hours in the week.
Remembering others, as though we are them. As St. Francis prayed, “May we seek not so much to be understood as to understand.”
That is what we are called to feel toward friends and enemies alike. Mercy, and compassion enough to walk a mile in another’s shoes. Even when it’s an uncomfortable fit.
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