I don't care who you are! I know how to make you uncomfortable, and, it's by holding up a mobile phone, white camera light on, in your direction.
If I did it to my wife she'd lower my arm so how do you think it feels when you look up and it's a perfect stranger with his phone up, maybe pretending to text or scan through photos but the kink in the wrist is too awkward a position to be comfortable.
I don't want your pity. I don't even want my own. I hate the feeling, the mistrust, the icy glass edge of the thing and the way that it cuts, so deep. It shouldn't but it does.
The blatancy of the thing, of the person.
The self-doubt and sabotage.
Why me?
What's the problem?
Is that supposed to be subtle?
I rehearse over and over what I could say, about how I could have chosen to let that act hurt me but I know where my identity lies, and then I realise it mustn't lie there at all. I can't say that. I could approach him. I've done it before. The guy jumped out of his skin. You see, people aren't looking for confrontation... I think they actually think they're being subtle. I don't think they know an ounce of what they're doing, the impact of the act.
It happened last night in church, in my church. Obviously unchurched, right? I wanted to give him a few lines, have a chat to him, maybe pray for him. I spent half an hour considering it, looking over, making sure the phone wasn't still out, that his friends had stopped looking over and chuckling. Fortunately, the sermon was good, and I shook hands with some mates afterwards instead of bothering with the guy.
It was as I was leaving however I cottoned on to the fact that it was I who was in need of prayer, not the other guy.
Who's worse off, the guy doing something blatantly wrong who obviously has no idea, or the guy suffering silently? Over and over again... how long will it take to sink in that these people do not dictate who I am. They don't know me. They don't know what they're doing.
I realise I am the corrupted one, corrupted by this world, corrupted by the need to be honoured by people, treated with dignity and respect by everyone, even admired. Where did that idea come from?
'Who told you you were naked?'
It was in a Lebanese pizza shop this morning when I saw Daniel. I'd met Daniel a few weeks earlier and he remembered me. As I opened the door the bell at the top swung and donged and Daniel looked up from where he'd been leaning over the counter chatting the pizza man's ear off.
"Hey!" he said, smiling ear to ear.
"How are you mate?" I asked.
"Good thanks. You?" Daniel responded in that over enthused way that made me feel I had no response worthy of the question.
'DING!'
"Oh! Hey George!" Daniel yelled exuberantly, swinging round to shake hands with a student from the same school as him. "How are you?" George held out his hand reluctantly, nodding charitably at Daniel.
"One zaatar!" said the pizza man and I heard him but I was focused intently on Daniel, the sheer joy in his face as he looked at the pizza guy and then at me, and at the zaatar, smiling sillily.
As I walked away from the shop I thought about Daniel. Why was he so joyful? He saw the reluctance in the handshake, or did he? Was it possible that he didn't even notice?
"Who told you you were naked?" God asked Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
I feel like he's asking me right now, "Who told you that David?"
When it comes to our identity we have to silence the noise in order to hear the still, quiet voice of God. There are people who will jump at the chance to tell us we are flawed and broken but were we ever supposed to listen to the slander?
There is one who tells us he knows the thoughts he thinks toward us, thoughts of peace and hope. His voice though, has been drowned out. We've already been told we're naked—a lost cause.
We must learn again how to be naked and dance, how to shake hands with reluctant people, how to smile at those who jeer at us, how to pose at those who film us and how to bless those who disqualify us.
David Luschwitz prefers Toby's Estate to Campos Coffee, though the new Campos place across the road from his place does know how to use a bean. Game on he reckons!
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David's previous articles can be found at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/david-luschwitz.html