“Because I knew you, I have been changed for the better.”
So sing the two leads of the Broadway musical Wicked. That is, so they sing far into the show after they realize that they aren’t as different or opposed to one another as they once thought. Before, they saw each other as, at best, someone whose presence in their life could best be summed up by the words “these things are sent to try us.” But then came truly getting to know one another. And then, change for the better.
In a CT review of David Brooks’ new book How to Know a Person, author Justin Whitmel Earley explores this phenomenon. He describes a time when he prejudged a person, deciding immediately upon meeting that they wouldn’t get along. But then they started talking. And now, years after this conversation, Earley recalls it with great fondness.
Our increasingly divided world does little to encourage us to give one another a chance. Many choose to interact only with people who keep them comfortable, share their views, or don’t grate on their nerves. But—as Wicked, Brooks, and Earley attest—there’s fullness of life to be found in paying attention to a person past the point of temptation to dismiss them.
As we seek to embody Jesus’ heart for unity, may we do so as those who believe that we can both change others for the better and be changed ourselves.
