How We See Others Is How We Treat Them

      How we see others is how we are going to treat them. If we see them as objects, we're going to treat them as objects. If we see them as worthless, as property, or as a means to an end, then we will treat them accordingly. If we see them as a person guilty of a crime, then that is how we will act around them. If we see them as a condemned sinner then we will act accordingly. If we see them as an enemy, we will treat them as such. If we see them as a friend, we will treat them as a friend. If we see them as family, then we will treat them as family. If we see them as a creation of God, a genuine child of God, a vessel carrying the Spirit of Christ, a walking shrine housing the Living God, then we will respond to them in that way. We may not even be fully conscious of how we are seeing the other person, but this holds true regardless that we will treat them how we view them.

     How do you love someone as yourself? How do you treat them like you treat yourself? You see them as yourself. You put yourself in their shoes. You attempt to feel what they feel, and understand how they arrived at where they are at. You become them, and they you in that moment. If you see the other person as "other" then you will treat them as "other." If you see the other person as yourself, you will treat them like you treat yourself.

     How can I love the person I don't even like? See Jesus in them. Imagine, not this person that you don't like standing next to you, but Jesus Himself in every person around you. Imagine, that just as God is omnipresent, so He is also experiencing what you are experiencing through you, and He is experiencing what that other person is experiencing through them. And so when you are kind to this person you may or may not like, you are being kind to God. When you are hurting or being violent towards this other person, you are hurting or being violent towards God. Mother Teresa when asked why she helped the poor, the dying, and the outcasts in India replied, "Because I see Jesus' face when I look at them." In many ways, this is the simplest and most basic of Christian practices towards discipleship and learning to love God, our neighbor, our enemies, and one another. Jesus taught, "Just as you have done to the least of these My brothers, you have done it to Me." Understanding this in a more literal sense is a useful and profoundly effective exercise for the disciple of the Way.

     Doing away with the mentality of the "other" separating "I" from "you" and "us" from "Him" is the only real, practical way to fulfill the two great commandments to Love God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your strength, and all of your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.