How do we treat others, even with our very busy lives?
OK, this will be just a somewhat brief piece, and one reflecting my own experiences, and not necessarily everyone else’s. It is more or less about those who are a bit more famous, more important, busier, and more in the spotlight than most of us peons. They can be celebs, politicians, leaders, academics, authors or even Christian pastors.
Indeed, I mostly want to discuss Christians here. My point is this: There are various ways we can learn about people – various clues or indicators of what a person might be like. One clue might be how these folks treat you, or interact with you, if they do at all.
If you are like me, you would have at least a few interactions with such folks now and then. The interesting thing is how they might respond to you and me. Do they take some time with us mere mortals, or are they too important and too busy to give us the time of day?
Obviously, many of them really are far too busy. They might be a Christian leader or author or pastor or speaker who has a very large number of followers and fans, and a very hectic schedule. Often they simply cannot deal with everyone, and they might even have paid staff to deal with correspondence, phone calls, emails, invitations, and the like
You can perhaps put these VIPs on a bell curve in terms of how they respond to us ordinary folk. If you are just some regular Joe, and you contact them, you will likely get one of these three sorts of replies:
-A few might actually respond, graciously and kindly, and perhaps even thank you for getting in touch with them.
-The majority will likely just ignore you and never get back to you.
-A few might angrily reply, making it clear that they look down on and despise you for being a nobody and for interrupting their busy and precious life.
Needless to say, these sorts of responses can tell us something about such people. Of course one could say that almost by definition, the VIPs and Big Cheeses of this world are quite busy. But then again, so are most folks. Even a nobody like me keeps pretty busy. And a fulltime homemaker and mother of three for example keeps extremely busy.
Moreover, most of us busy but ordinary folks do manage to be nice to others, listen to others, spend time with others, and so on – even to strangers. We hopefully don’t go around with an attitude: ‘I am too busy and too important to waste my time with you’.
Let me give you a few examples of this from my own personal experience. As some of you know, I have penned a lot of book reviews over the years. All up there are 788 full or partial reviews so far. Now and then one of the authors will contact me out of the blue to thank me for the review. Sure, perhaps only a handful will do this, but it is always appreciated.
A few examples include a well-known British author and lecturer. He had been a former atheist, so when he penned a book on Richard Dawkins (he ended up doing more than one actually), I grabbed it, read it, and reviewed it. I forget how he ended up contacting me, but he did, and he thanked me for the review, saying it was an accurate and useful summary of his work.
Of interest, around that same time an angry atheist came to my site, saying my review was bunk, and that I probably had not even read the volume. So it was nice having the book’s author and his own words in that case. And not long thereafter I managed to meet this writer when he came out to Melbourne to speak.
One noted Indian Christian writer and apologist had penned various great books, several of which I had reviewed. He too came to Melbourne to speak once, so I went up to him and introduced myself. He had no idea who I was, and being a bearded guy, he might have thought I was going to be a critic of his. But when I told him about my reviews, and my love for his work, his eyes lit up and he was quite happy to chat.
And some of these important figures I happen to be friends with on the social media. With most of them I can at best just like their posts, while never hearing anything back from them. But a few will kindly and politely interact with me. For example, one famous author and apologist from the US actually gave me a messenger phone call thingee on my birthday.
That was quite nice of him. But he may not have fully grasped the time zone differences between the Midwest of America and Melbourne, Australia, so it was a very early call – my time – and I missed it. But I chatted briefly with him later on the social media chat thingee. I guess we bonded a bit because we both had lost our wives not all that long ago.
Indeed, this just happened with another American scholar. A noted New Testament expert has an important new book out that I have been intending to get, even though this large tome is quite expensive – at least here in Australia. But I had posted about how frustrating it is to deal with bureaucracies, even a year and a half after my wife’s passing. He sent in a thoughtful comment saying he had lost a daughter on the day, three years ago, so he offered me kind words of comfort.
Again, he would be a very busy man, and he did not need to do this. But as a good brother in Christ, he did. We even ended up chatting about his new book. He said he was sorry he could not get me a review copy sent from the US. But I said I was happy to pay the full amount to get it, and hopefully do a review of it soon.
Perhaps having shared experiences of grief and sorrow helps us to more readily relate to and unite with others, seeing them as equals, and not as those we might look down upon or ignore. And as we should know, biblical leadership entails having a servant’s heart, and not lording it over others with an air of superiority.
There would be other such encouraging and positive stories I could tell, some of which I would need to jog my memory on. But sadly there can also be the opposite sort of reactions – or lack of reactions. For example, often I will contact some Christian leader to thank him for his work.
Some reply. Often others will not. Too busy, I guess. Or perhaps – for a few – too full of themselves. Indeed, on the social media, there are many well-known Christians that I often press a like response to on their posts, or share them, or even comment on them. Very few will return the favour, however.
Again, they are usually really busy. But from some of them I just pick up a vibe, like, ‘I do not have time for someone like you. I and my work are just too important.’ They may not actually say that, at least in so many words, but one can read between the lines – that is the clear feeling you can get from them. And sometimes I will praise someone online, but instead of offering a quick word of thanks, they will actually criticise what I have just said or make light of it. It hurts…
This idea of busyness, while true for so many, can also be an excuse. Just think of all the great saints of earlier times who certainly had no internet or computers and the like but who readily responded to piles of correspondence. Many of them wrote off thousands of letters to those who contacted them. And some of these folks did not even have a typewriter back then but had to use pen and ink and so on.
One thinks of very important and very busy Christian leaders such as Charles Spurgeon or C. S. Lewis. They were incredibly busy people, but they were also incredibly prolific and conscientious letter writers. Sure, they may have had some assistance from family members or friends to keep up with all this regular correspondence. But they made replying to others a priority, not seeing it as a pain.
So in part how these very busy and very well-known folks interact with us lesser lights can be an indication of the sorts of people they are. Not always, but sometimes. As I say, I have had some incredibly busy and industrious Christian leaders take time to chat or interact with me. Others simply ignore me, or fob me off.
But to conclude, that still leaves me with a few necessary responses. One, I must be willing to forgive those who seem to have slighted me or ignored me or brushed me off. Some of their reactions may have been intentional, others not so much. But I must still learn to forgive and forget.
Two, I can also pray for these folks. They certainly are quite busy and are often under so much pressure. They might want to sit around and chat with others, but too often their busy schedules and demanding ministry activities mean they cannot always do that.
And three, I have to be on guard myself about this very thing. Do I sometimes think I am too important for some other folks? Can I look down on some Christians? Can I be condescending and smug in how I treat and interact with others? Am I too busy to deal with others? That is probably the most important thing I can take out of all this.
There will always be some folks who will snub me, have little time for me, want nothing to do with me, and look down on me. I must make sure that I am not doing the same thing to others. And I must also keep in mind that this sort of behaviour is NOT how Jesus treats me and others.
He always has time for me. And he can give me his full and undivided attention, even while doing the same for millions of others. That is something I must be aware of as I deal with others. Lord help me in this regard. Help me to be more Christlike in my dealings with others.
