Several years ago a local TV ad campaign ran pictures of dogs and their owners while pitching a product of some kind. In every ad, there was a striking and comical resemblance between the dogs and their owners. I’m not sure if the people picked these dogs because of the resemblance or the resemblance took shape as they lived together. Either way, it made for some great photos.
As we live in close proximity with others, we slowly begin to look like each other. We take on each others’ mannerisms, say the same phrases, express similar attitudes. Over time, we become more and more like the other people in our lives. I heard it said recently that the best indicator of how people vote is what neighborhood they live in. (that is the extent of election references out of me!). We are heavily influenced by the people that we rub shoulders with.
Always Imitating
All of us who have children already know this. Your child begins to change the way they wear their hair, the way they dress, the language they use. You know all of this is coming from their friends. It might be amusing or troubling but they are living out what is instinctual for them – to imitate others. The truth is, we never quite grow out of this. We are made to be imitators.
When we are young we learn everything by imitating those around us. It is very fun to watch my two grandkids live this out these days. The younger one simply has to do everything the older one does.
A moments thought reveals we learn practically everything by imitation. Language is learned by listening and imitating the sounds one hears. Learning a new skill requires watching and imitating. Whatever we most love to do, chances are we have seen someone else doing it which sparked the interest in us. As we begin to practice what we see and hear, whether it be language, skill, or behaviours, we become more and more proficient and the activity feels more and more like it originated with us.
This reminds me of a devastating scene in the movie The Devil Wears Prada where the Anne Hathaway character thinks she has simply chosen a nice blue sweater to wear only to be told in a scathing monologue that she only chose it because the fashion industry put that color before her eyes. She was simply imitating what was placed before her.
As much as we may want to think of ourselves as free and original people, we are mostly imitating what we have seen around us.
This may seem rather deterministic and depressing but the freedom we do possess is what we choose to look at. What, or who, are we choosing to imitate?
Becoming Whom We Contemplate[1]
In Matthew 11:29-30, Jesus invites us to “take his yoke” upon us, a yoke that is “easy and light” and by doing so we will find rest for our souls. Most of the time I hear this passage referred to it’s accompanied by a “Yeah, right. I wish!” We find it difficult to believe that living a “Jesus-life” is anything but easy and light. It seems, well, mostly impossible.
But we are imitators, and the gift that our imagination in prayer affords us is that we can choose what we attend to, what we look at, what we imitate. We can choose to watch Jesus, paying attention to how he lives, what he says and how he says it. The more we do this, the more we begin to believe that a life like this is actually possible. We are seeing it being lived right before our eyes. One of the things we notice is that Jesus does seem to be living rather easy and light, unhurried, and attentive to interruptions. The more we spend time with Jesus in this way, allowing his life to invade our imagination, the more we begin to discover that we are becoming like him. Turning the other cheek, blessing those who hate us, loving the ones who mistreat us – all of this comes more into the realm of possibility because we see Jesus living it.
Real Transformation is Possible
Back in the 14th Century, Ludolph of Saxony, the German theologian and Carthusian monk, wrote that the purpose of meditating on the life of Jesus was “so that our hearts will be poured out into Christ by a perfect transformation into him.”[2] We imitate what we contemplate. Our proximity to Jesus begins, ever so slowly, to form us into ones who look more and more like him.
Of course, this transformation will be slow and is often difficult. In When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd captures the gravity of becoming who we were created to be through God's transforming work. She prays, and you may want to pray with her,
God, I don't want to live falsely, in self-imposed prisons and fixed, comfortable patterns that confine my soul and diminish the truth in me. So much of me has gone underground. I want to let my soul out . . . I'm scared, God. Make me brave. Lead me into the enormous spaces of becoming. Help me . . . risk becoming the person you created me to be.[3]
The work of inner transformation is a lifelong journey. As we live with Jesus, the Spirit will form our lives to reflect the way of Jesus.
Thanks for reading. Until next Thursday.
[1] This title is from an article by George Aschenbrenner, “Becoming Whom We Contemplate,” The Way Supplement 52, (Spring, 1985).
[2] Milton Walsh, “To Always Be Thinking Somehow About Jesus,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 43/1 (Spring 2011): 17. Ludolph's “Vita Christi” was an inspiration for Ignatius as he created his Spiritual Exercises.
[3] Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits. (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2016), 55.
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