Holy Encounters happen every day. They are not something mysterious, but are actually fairly common. The trick is to recognize them. With recognition, they are learning opportunities.
Holy encounters happen when we encounter another person - plain and simple. There is so much opportunity for healing and growth when and if we see the encounter as a mirror:
...As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself. (A Course in Miracles)
Some holy encounters are fun. They are my favorite kind - meeting a stranger and enjoying a laugh together, random pleasant conversations, direct, caring eye contact with another person. These encounters feel very good. We feel like we "connect" with someone and know and understand them. We are seeing in them the good and positive characteristics we also attribute to ourselves. We say we are "like minded".
Some holy encounters are mundane. We say hello to the kid at the gas station who rings us up, we chat with a coworker, order our lunch and leave a tip for our food server, call a business contact on the phone, have dinner conversation with family, all of the myriad of encounters we have each day. These have great potential to be healing, holy encounters if we go beyond the mundane aspects of the encounters and look at the other person as one with us. They are our mirrors. They challenge us to look at how we interact with others, even on that mundane, daily basis and notice what we see in that person and what that says about us. They are our mirror. How we treat them says much about how we think about ourselves.
Some holy encounters are difficult. These are the opportunities for the greatest healing and growth. Typically, when we are being criticized, treated unfairly, or misjudged we want to react with defensiveness and criticism of the other. But, if these encounters are also holy, and there is healing in it for us, we need to look at "where do I see myself in this?". I have a friend, Maureen, who always asks herself in these difficult encounters "How am I like that?". Doesn't this open a whole new can of worms??? It's not really about the other person, it's about me and my ability to see opportunities to grow and change in this situation.
Recently I had a particularly challenging situation which was frustrating in one respect, yet interesting and amazing in another respect. The owner of the building where I rent office space went on a tirade against me because I was putting my garbage in the "wrong place", unbeknownst to me, for the past year. So, he was harboring resentments instead of just talking to me and clarifying the situation. The tirade became really ugly when he drove to my neighborhood and strew a bag of garbage on my neighbor's front porch, thinking it was my porch (goes to show that a GPS is not always accurate).
Once I went through my human, ego reaction of being bewildered, distressed and outright indignant, I allowed myself to see this as a holy encounter......hmmm......I had that instant of recognition, that this event was an opportunity to look at myself. As a therapist, I look at the symbolism - do I have psychic "garbage" that I am displacing? Do I avoid and harbor resentments? Do I misjudge and misperceive? I guess I can yes to all of that, although not to any great extent. I'm pretty self aware and I try to learn from each experience and move on.
At a deeper level, I challenged myself to begin to look at, not how my brother misjudged me, but how do I misjudge my brother? Misjudgement stems from misperception. So again,everything goes back to our thoughts. What are we thinking about other people? What are we thinking about ourselves?
This "holy encounter" points me back to the direction of taking responsibility for myself, for my thoughts, to be more vigilent about what I am thinking about my brother, to stop the negative thoughts and judgements and to think with compassion and remember "we are one". This holy encounter reminds me that in this situation, I can either find myself (see the projection) or lose myself (miss the opportunity to see the projection and grow and change for the better)
Sometimes, on a daily, mundane basis, we need to deal with life and life's circumstances. We can always do this with compassion, if we choose. We clarify, apologize, problem solve. On a deeper level, we can also deal with life and life's circumstances in a spiritual way - see the other as our brother and a mirror of ourselves. If we stop projecting and seeing all the bad stuff as "out there, in the world" and shift our focus to changing the "bad" and negative thoughts we have, we will all change. All we can change is ourselves, we can't change others.
When you meet anyone, remember, it is a holy encounter.
God bless.
