Becoming Visible – September 2023
One of the recurring themes of the poet, Mary Oliver, is the need for us to slow down and pay attention to the things that surround us—her focus being on the natural world. For her, prayer was about giving deep notice to the wonder that God places in our paths every day. I love this idea because I tend to miss so much of life on my way to getting the next important thing done. The biblical analog for my personality is the priest who intentionally sidesteps the beat-up guy in the Good Samaritan story. In this way, I seem to be the opposite of Jesus, whose ministry seemed to always begin with noticing things and people who were largely invisible to the rest of the world.
I am so bad at this that when I do notice someone or something, it stands out. Last month after attending a prize fight in Las Vegas (Crawford v. Spence), I woke up early the next morning to look for a Starbucks in the deserted MGM lobby. I noticed an inebriated woman nearby who was frantically pushing the elevator buttons. I walked over to see if I could help. She told me, with some distress, that she couldn’t find the man she had come to Vegas with. I walked her down to the hotel security guard who said he would help find her room. It was a tiny act of kindness on my part, but she thanked me anyway for noticing her. When I did, I was moved to action.
The night before, on our way to see the fight, I found myself noticed on the Strip in a way that I will never forget. I had purchased a green sequined sports jacket for my championship “fight attire.” If you are asking why I bought a sequined coat, you have never been to a prize fight before. Before putting it on, my friend and I had been walking along the strip in complete anonymity. The coat went on and everything changed. “Awesome jacket—where can I get one?” “That’ coat’s amazing. You look like a mermaid!” My friend was beside himself in amazement and pleasure. We were in on a joke that was making everyone smile. For a guy who has generally chosen clothes to blend in, it was quite a revelation to me.
Somewhere in the night, it occurred to me that the Vegas crowd was a group that Jesus would have loved. He enjoyed being with the players, prostitutes (and boxing promoters) of his day, preferring those who operated in the margins and were used to being ignored. In many cases, he was the first one to notice them at all. What could it have meant for an outcast leper to be spoken to and even touched by Jesus when the rest of the world wouldn’t even glance in his direction. Jesus saw him, spoke to him, and then reached out and touched him. In Jesus’s eyes, everyone was wearing green sequined jackets—lepers included. He knew and acted as though the marginalized were big deals –something they didn’t know about themselves. He greeted these people like Vegas reached out to me when I put the green coat on: AWESOME, MAN!
I suspect that because others had noticed and affirmed me the night before in my jacket, I was overflowing with notice to give to the woman the next morning. She was someone I would normally have looked past yet this time, I saw her. She had become visible to me.
The green sequined jacket is back in my closet again but it makes me smile when I see its sparkle and think about what it felt like to go from being invisible to visible. Maybe that’s how the leper felt after Jesus walked away after the healing.
I’ve got a long way to go before I get to swap identities from the busy priest to the good Samaritan. And I don’t think I’m the person you are hoping for if your car gets stalled on the side of the road. Old habits die hard. But I think that I am on a path to noticing people better as a jumping off point to loving them. My jacket taught me that there is something shiny and colorful about each of us that is waiting to be seen, celebrated, and maybe even loved.