The wonder of perceptions

This Thanksgiving weekend many of my family members and some close friends (22 people in all) were together at my niece and nephew-in-law's place in rural Quebec. We were also celebrating the 50th birthday of my nephew. There was a fantastic mixture of generations - us oldies, 40's & 50's and young children. It was really great. 

The setting, on a small, very quiet lake surrounded by trees all in their most fantastic autumn colour was breathtaking. There was of course, lots of noise in the house but once we stepped out, it was silent and meditative. Yesterday though was frosty - had to scrape the ice off the windshield.

What I wanted to share especially though was a most fascinating exercise in perception that we underwent one afternoon. As I mentioned, my nephew was celebrating his 50th birthday. He is a bachelor, a man who essentially marches to his own drummer, and who lives simply and ascetically. At least, that is how most of the adults would see him. 

The exercise in perception began when he was out of the room and it was intended to be preparation for a poem that someone would write and read out in the evening party after Thanksgiving dinner. A question was asked: how do you see Steve? what comes to mind when you think of him?

The adults started with such words as: a bit unusual, a loner, an eccentric. Words also used were : gentle, kind, interesting, someone who fixes things around the house, someone who is almost always late ...

The children then spoke and the most commonly used expression for him was AWESOME! All the adults just sat there and soaked this up, marvelling at the use of a word that would not easily have come to mind for them. But the children were emphatic that this was the best word to describe him. 

So, for me, this was a great lesson in not wholly thinking that my perception of another person is all that comprehensive or worth giving great weight to. Because it is really true that each of us is such a complex human personality and we do tend to be a bit different with different people that we cannot and should not be 'pinned down'. 

Therefore, the next time I think I have someone's personality "nailed' I think I would do well to ask a few other people before I say or think anything. The next time I am tempted to think that someone is ... whatever... I hope I can just hold back a while and take another look and another listen. And that sort of comes back to what I hope I managed to say in my last couple of blogs - that to learn to see people I want to think I understand or perhaps judge for not being what I think they should be, I should try to see the wonderful, God blessed humanity at the core of each person.