Being Present to Others is Love

Being present to people is like—and this is the best metaphor I can come up with—driving a car on roads in town or on a highway. Your eyes have to see everything that is going on: any change in the traffic lights or traffic, any potholes to avoid, what the cars ahead of you and on each side of you and behind you are doing— every minute that you are driving. You have to be aware of the streets or roads you are passing, so that you can be alert to any cars turning onto your road. Lately, after years of driving, I’ve come to think of all that traffic as a community, so that we have to show others what we are doing—turning, slowing down, avoiding slower traffic ahead in our lane—whatever is making us change lanes or speed. By signaling to others what is happening, we are communicating the dangers or just a warning to be careful.

Of course, in this kind of community, we don’t know the other drivers or the pedestrians who might be trying to cross the roads we are traveling, but we are super dependent on them, nonetheless, because our very lives, our safety, are in their hands, and their lives are in our hands. And so, we do our best to not cause accidents which would hurt others and ourselves. We won’t know, if we ever meet them in a social situation, if they were on the road with us any time. So, in this kind of community, we don’t have the satisfaction of knowing them in any way, but we still depend on them.