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The Question Was Asked to Test Him
on seeing the goodness in others, starting with ourselves
“Tell me what you see” is how I think I would phrase it. This is one way that you could phrase the question for yourself, for someone you are sitting with, as you look at your neighborhood, your community.
As you scan your eyes over what is in front of you, “Tell me what you see.”
These words came to me again this morning as I listened to Krista Tippett interview Corey Booker. In the interview, Booker tells the story of walking around a neighborhood in New Jersey with “Miss Jones”.
And it was that moment when I first started on Martin Luther King Boulevard, with Miss Jones, where she checked me, hard, and she said, “Describe the neighborhood.” And I described it like I did to you — the drug dealing, the projects, the abandoned building. And she just said to me in a very curt way, “Boy, you need to understand that the world you see outside of you is a reflection of what you have inside of you, and if you’re one of those people who only sees darkness, despair, that’s all there’s ever gonna be. But if you see hope, opportunity, if you’re stubborn enough to, every time you open your eyes, see love and the face of God, then you can be a change agent here. Then you can make a difference.”
