One good way to get beyond judging other people is to see everyone not as what they are but as what they could be in Christ. Paul says that love believes all things, and that sometimes means believing the impossible for someone else. By doing this, we can often create an environment for people to change.
My mother slowly lost her mind in the years prior to her death. Some called it dementia, others called it Alzheimer’s; I called it being eighty-nine. It was hard to watch. Where she once had been so engaging, with a mind as sharp as a tack, she soon retreated into silence when around others, even members of her family, most of whom she no longer recognized. She lost all confidence in her ability to speak. Her sentences began promisingly enough, but trailed off quickly into a repetitive dead end, like words rattling around in a cage,
For a while, I took to calling her on occasion and talked with her on the phone. For this I developed a fairly effective means of communicating. First, I never corrected her; I followed wherever she wanted to go. When she would veer off track into gibberish, I would say something that would bring her back to where she got off, and in this manner some semblance of conversation was pieced together. While doing this, I would write down every word she said as fast as I could, even the ones that didn’t make sense. Then it would always happen that later, when I went over three or four pages of notes, a message would emerge. It was never the same, and it was always something I needed to hear right then, personally.
My father used to say she brightened when I called. Maybe that’s because I didn’t berate her for not making sense or try and straighten out her sentences. I treated her as if she were making sense. I’m not bragging about this—I probably would not have had this patience if I had to bear the frustration of living with her every day—I merely noticed that believing all things about someone and treating them accordingly is a very powerful force.
When we see others as they could be in Christ, we are creating an environment for it to be so. Not that we make it so by believing it, but our faith may help open the way. Like palm branches before the triumphant Christ, we can pave the road for some new form of “Hosanna” should Christ choose to come this way.
It is a good axiom and well worth considering, to see others as what they could be in Christ, while seeing yourself as what you would be without him. On this basis, we will always see others as better than ourselves.
John Fischer The Catch 
What a precious gift to be present to someone who is an “altered state of consciousness.” Sort of an “altared state of consciousness” on the part of you, John, for your mother. As I relate to someone diagonosed with dementia or Altzheimer’s disease, I picture not the extrnal expression or even the internal process going on as the person; those re not truly representative of the identity that this beloved of God has in the heart of her maker. Instead, her blessed complete and holy spirit, not measurable by clinical or ordinary means, is temporarily over-shadowed by physical circumstances. The person is in a sense in a fog, I think, and the practice of notes are a great idea to help sound through to safe harbor. What a great idea. Thanks!
Well put, John.
Thank you for these words on how to treat someone whose mind is doing odd things. It is a good thing to remember in ministry and in all person-to-person connections.
A thought: How about taking it one step further and looking at others as we would look at Christ himself. There is a Celtic rune of hospitality that ends with these words: “Often goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.” And a Celtic blessing ends with these words: “May we see the face of Christ in everyone we meet, and may everyone we meet see the face of Christ in us.” Treating others as though they were Christ in disguise (even if we know the face well) elevates them beyond themselves and ourselves and gives them a worth that comes from God.
Great message, John, as always!!
It was good to read your account of communicating with your Mom on a level that allowed her to get to the message as she choose, not as you desired. With my Mom, I would refer to her by her name rather than “Mom”. She was at a time before husband and children. At one Christmas party while we were singing I noticed that Mom was watching me sing and she was mouthing the words as I would sing them. I stopped singing and was amazed when she continued. She remembered the words to the songs she had sung since childhood. God is great, all the time.
My mother could play hymns flawlessly on the piano long after she had forgotten who she was and who we were.
Nice job, John. Thanks!
As happens so many times in my walk, search, pursuit….. I get upset with one of the “others” for some unkind word or act, then I think and perhaps say things in response that I shouldn’t, and THEN read your message for the day which seems to fit so well. The feeling is: I endure, more or less, the act of someone else, react in way I wish I wouldn’t and then God points out that I’m the one in the wrong. Seems like double jeopardy. Must be what I need.
John, as I read these verses flew into my mind – love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast ; it is not arrogant…love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things.
You lived these verses with your mom. God bless you fro this message.
That is the same passage I was thinking of.
There is a video on the internet of Merrill Ewing I think, singing “He saw Me” which would go very well with this. If we see others as we are seen through Christ, as pure, and clean instead of the thing that we are…
Thank you John for this beautiful message today. It brought back so many memories for me with my father who had alzheimers. It was very hard to watch my father lose his mind, but I would still visit and sit with him and love him. Even when he was at his worst in the disease and he recognized no one, I always saw a little twitch of brightening in my dads eyes when I walked in the room. So truly, the best thing we can give anyone is our complete LOVE, nothing else matters – if it causes a light to go on in someones life, then what is better than that?