A Rainy Day

We are all one in Christ, so how come it doesn’t feel that way? It’s true that on the outside we, as people from a variety of different countries, look and act differently but those differences can be fun to explore. We try wearing different types of clothes, eating different kinds of food and speaking other languages. There are challenges to all those attempts but we get past them and even enjoy them. We believe that we have arrived at a place where we understand each other.

Then one day something happens, such as it rains really hard one morning. This is a seemingly insignificant yet very revealing event. From one perspective the rain is a major obstacle. You will get sick if you walk all the way to work in the rain so the sensible thing to do is stay at home and wait until it finishes. You might arrive at work a few hours late but that’s not important. You have stayed healthy and done your best to get to work when you can. There’s no point in letting your boss know why you are late, they will have seen the rain and understood.

However, there is another perspective at play. This perspective looks at the rain as a minor inconvenience. True, it’s difficult to walk to work in the rain so you use your umbrella, ride the bus or take a taxi. It might not be as easy as getting to work usually is but it’s your responsibility to arrive at work on time. Your boss is not going to accept the rain as a valid excuse for being late. It would be embarrassing, even shameful to arrive at work very late and then claim that you couldn’t arrive earlier because of the rain.

Both of these perspectives are valid, so what happens when the first perspective is the perspective of the employee and the second is that of the employer? What happens is a barrier goes up. Neither person understands why the other person did or said what they did. The employee is hurt and confused by his harsh employer. He can’t understand why his employer doesn’t care about his personal health but only about getting to work on time. He tries to explain that he saved his employer paying him sick time because he stayed home and didn’t walk in the rain. But his employer doesn’t understand and punishes him anyway by forcing him to make up the time he missed on another day.

On the other hand, the employer is confused by his usually hard working employee. He doesn’t understand why the rain is such a big deal. He feels like the employee is being lazy and making excuses because he didn’t feel like coming to work on time that day. He doesn’t know why the employee won’t take responsibility for his own actions. He tries to be understanding because it was raining really hard so instead of punishing the employee he offers him the chance to make up the time on another day.

This example shows how the differences between these two people go much deeper than the clothes they wear or the languages they speak. They look at life completely differently so what started out as good intentions on the part of both people, ends up in hurt, anger and confusion.

Now if these people are Christians they know they should be able to get along and work together because they are united in Christ. But what does that mean on a practical level? How do you work with someone who doesn’t seem to care about you? What do you do when you try to put someone else ahead of yourself only to have them think you are being cruel? How do you handle the power imbalance between the employer and employee when there are these kinds of differences?

I don’t have any answers, just lots of questions. Prayer and wisdom are crucial ingredients but what can we do to see past our own perspectives? How do we lay aside our view of the world and step into someone else’s shoes? How do we help them step into our shoes? How can something so impossible be possible?