Looking Beneath the Surface

Do you ever wonder how people see you? I do - I think I always have. I know how I view others and it makes me wonder how people view me. Generally I look on others with compassion and tenderness. Some might call this gullible but I just say I am gifted with Mercy and that spiritual gift isn't for everyone. It makes me look at others through the same rose-colored glasses that God looks at me through when he looks at me through Jesus.

Wayne Watson sings a wonderful song called Rose-Colored Glasses and it expresses the above sentiment to the T.

In my past I have had the opportunity to sit down with all sorts of people. There were famous people like Ruth Walker who wrote Air Force Wives, Pamela Wallace who wrote the story idea for Witness (I actually got to hold her Oscar!) and the screenplay for the second Left Behind movie, Bonnie Hearn who writes all sorts of writing books and mystery novels, New York Times Best Selling Author, Gail Giorgio, a Disney Executive named Denise, several Harlequin Romance publishers and many others I can't even remember. I've sat and had coffee with poet Luis Omar Salinas and Jon Veinburg and was thrilled when they told me I had a poet's soul. I've studied with some of the best in the business and been treated as their equal on most occasions. It is a heady feeling to walk among the stars of the writing world and know that on some level you have value to them. But most of these contacts were made when I was in the thick of things - heading up a writer's group in the Central San Joaquin Valley. It has been years since I felt that alive...Which brings me to the point of this blog.

A number of years ago, a former friend and I were having coffee at her condo in Fresno. I don't remember what were were discussing, it may have been her upcoming cruise to Mexico. At any rate, there was a plumber in the kitchen and I was getting quite animated with my words. She looked at me for a moment and put her fingers to her lips to silence me. Then, very quietly, she said, "be careful what you say right now - he is a nice guy but he is a surface person." I didn't know what the heck that was so I started to ask and again she quieted me. Later, after he left, she explained that a surface person was someone you were nice to and carried on pleasant conversations with but that is all. Sort of like the maids and butlers in a household are held at arm's length - friendly, but never in that "inner circle". I didn't understand that concept. I guess I still don't - and knowing my personality - I never will.

Years would pass before I would hear those words again and this time they would be coming out of the mouth of my own pastor as he counseled us on a family matter. He stated that he was very careful of who he let into his inner circle. I simply looked at my husband in disbelief - this man had held us at arm's length since we started attending the church. In that one sentence, Rusty let us know that we weren't worthy of his inner circle and were therefore "surface" people. Needless to say, we stopped attending that church. That pastor was no better than we were and nothing he said was going to make me see it any different.

Because of the ADHD in our sons and the behavior issue caused by the Tourette's Syndrome, we developed a habit of holding people at arm's length - not because we were better than they were - but because we never felt on the same level. They all had normal children and simply could not understand that we did not. There were a few we let get close and for the most part we were safe but we did get hurt a time or two.

So now I am in a position, once again, to wonder if I am a "surface" person. My years of keeping people at arm's length has caused my social skills to atrophy. I don't know what the rules are, much less how to play the game. But unless I step out and take a chance I will never learn now will I?

What most people don't understand about me is that I love them, warts and all. That is a rarity in this day and age.