“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.” (James Baldwin)
For a significant portion of my elementary school experience, I harbored deep insecurities about my math abilities. Math always seemed daunting, and I often questioned whether I was using the right strategies to arrive at the correct answers. Maybe this struggle was exacerbated by math’s association with “smartness” as opposed to viewing it as a form of art to participate in, as something to get messy with. Regardless, 5th grade Phil found it challenging to trust myself.
That very next year, everything changed when I encountered a math teacher who transformed my relationship with math, and even with myself. Recognizing my potential despite my insecurities, she saw me, this short nervous 5th grader with glasses and braces, as a student gifted in mathematics. She saw me, in the midst of a school system that tended to underestimate the mathematical aptitude of Black students compared to their peers.
Throughout that academic year, she consistently offered me a valuable piece of advice: “Phil, trust your gut; you know what to do.” Reflecting on it now, I realize that her guidance extended beyond the classroom. It was a life lesson, and for the first time in a long time, I felt seen in school. She magnified my strengths, emphasizing that I possessed everything I needed to navigate challenges successfully. Today, her words echo in my life, reminding me to trust my gut and let my light shine brightly.
We all have a deep desire to be witnessed, for the God in us to be encountered by the God in others. Click To Tweet
To Be Witnessed
In a world where our attention is the prize that goes to the highest bidder, I am reminded of how radical of an act it is to choose to see each other.
To witness is to recognize my own humanity in the eyes of the beloved in front of me, no matter who it might be. It is the deep acknowledgement that our liberation, our ability to express and thrive, is intimately bound to theirs. In our consumerist culture, I am reminded of the subversive nature of witnessing others. The compassionate hand on your shoulder in the midst of grief, the friend who’s not afraid to celebrate your wins, the stillness of a truly active listener, sitting with you in the deepest parts of who you are. When we do this, we tap into a divine connection that has been woven throughout human history, tying our stories to one another and to a God who formed us all from the dust.
The tapestry of mutuality holds true as a universal reality. It reminds us of our humanity and connection to the Divine and to the earth, transcending the many –isms that plague this world.
It is an embodied way of being that begins with self-love. My wife has a painting in our living room that says “We can only meet others as deeply as we’ve met ourselves.” This is where our journey begins, in an invitation to show compassion to the deepest parts of ourselves. Listening to our bodies, acknowledging our God-given desires, and embracing our ancestral stories. These moments, like books, wait to be held, read, and embraced without haste or judgment. The seeing of ourselves gives us the spaciousness we need to see each other.
How often do we journey through our days unconscious to the sacred reality that the God in us is beautiful and worthy of being witnessed? Jesus alludes to this when he invites the disciples in the gospels to take communion on the final night before he is taken to trial and crucified. To take communion as an act of remembering, re-membering themselves to all that holds the breath of God.
In the face of an empire that prioritizes systems that dis-member, as you re-member me, you do so with yourselves and one another. If we forget to witness the God in us, how much more will we forget to witness the God in others? Holding onto fear and scarcity mindset limits our ability to be present and to practice the presence of God in our community.
In a world where our default way of viewing others is often through the lens of fear, it can be disheartening to see how we settle for the shack of scarcity mindset rather than coming home to abundance. All too often, we associate people and their stories as mere products to be consumed, hated, or othered, rather than witnessing them as individuals whose lives are intricately connected to our own in a beautiful tapestry of destiny.
I believe God has not given us a Spirit of fear but a spirit of love. A Spirit of love that when locked in step, hand in hand with our neighbors for true justice, brings about a new world of liberation for all people.
In a world where our attention is the prize that goes to the highest bidder, I am reminded of how radical of an act it is to choose to see each other. (1/2) Click To Tweet
To witness is to recognize my own humanity in the eyes of the beloved in front of me, no matter who it is. It is the deep acknowledgement that our liberation, our ability to express and thrive, is intimately bound to theirs. (2/2) Click To Tweet
Radical Activism Through Witnessing
As we navigate a culture of consumerism and capitalism, we are unfortunately shaped to view each interaction as a transaction, asking, “What can I get from them?” rather than, “Who are they?” In the invitation to be a witness, Jesus reminds us that people are not transactions but an incarnate presence of the breath of God. We are encountered by God in others as we encounter their humanity.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Witnessing others is an act of resistance, as we proclaim with our lives: people over profit. In a world where capitalism reduces interactions and people to the sum of production and capital, witnessing our neighbors is activism against the empire we find ourselves in. We all have a deep desire to be witnessed, for the God in us to be encountered by the God in others.
The practice of witnessing today leads us to what Jesus calls the abundant life, embracing one another, seeing one another, and destroying systems that keep those we witness from thriving.
Honoring the God in others is the global movement of love — not a grand moment, but little moments of intentionality, care, curiosity, and liberation that shift us from fear to love and from scarcity to abundance. One sacred moment at a time, magnifying the light and stories in others.
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Phil Lewis is the pastor of youth & community at Union Church Seattle. He is a graduate of Seattle Pacific Seminary with a Master of Theology degree with a concentration in Reconciliation and Intercultural Studies. Phil is always excited to drink coffee, read new books, and meet new people. He is committed and passionate about seeing youth and the wider community in the Seattle area come to know Jesus in a communal and transformative way through the art of teaching, storytelling, mutual living and justice. Before Union, Phil spent 10 years pastoring middle schoolers, high schoolers and their parents across the region in a number of different contexts.
Witnessing others is an act of resistance, as we proclaim with our lives, people over profit. (1/2) Click To Tweet
In a world where capitalism reduces interactions and people to the sum of production and capital, witnessing our neighbors is activism against the empire we find ourselves in. (2/2) Click To Tweet
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