I offended someone yesterday

“All life is meeting”. Martin Buber, theologian

I offended someone yesterday. After a workshop, a woman came and told me that I had embarrassed her in front of colleagues and subordinates. I apologized. She left quickly, still unhappy. She was also a senior officer in the organisation for which I was working. As I cleaned up the training room, I pondered whether to go back up in the lift to reception on the next floor, ask for her and apologise again. There were good reasons not to bother. I was busy, it was a minor workshop in a larger suite of activities, she might not be available or willing to talk. After a few minutes, I decided to face the music and went upstairs to the reception desk and asked for her. She came into the public area. I thanked her for organizing the workshop and then apologized more fulsomely, acknowledging the breach in my own standards. Forty minutes later we were still talking, as she unfurled a litany of fraught challenges she was facing. Eventually, we bid goodbye, with smiles and acknowledgements.

In the lift, I was profoundly aware that this shift in our feelings toward each other had come from the tiniest of decisions. To go back up the stairs and ring the reception bell, instead of leaving the building. It was brave, but modest. Yet so valuable in its result.

Another way to think about being bold is being generous. In conversation, some of us veer towards the smart and cynical. It makes us look worldly, in charge. But it is dismissive and potentially destructive. What does it create? What does it open up? What does it invite? Someone else feels stupid, less competent, less worldly, less knowing. Great. Was that your intention? What was your intention?

What could generosity towards this other person have opened up?

A few years ago, I read a book by Martin Buber, “I Thou”. It is a quasi-theological text, controversial in its field, quite obscure in its language. Buber’s argument, as I understand it, is that in our face to face ‘encounters’ with others, we face an existential choice. To fully acknowledge the other is a potentially profound and transformative moment.

We don’t need to accept the full implications of Buber’s arguments to see that many of our meetings, our encounters with others, are meaningless. Nothing happens. This is mostly because we ourselves put nothing at stake in them. We engage in whatever is our most comforting and familiar version of talking about the weather. We protect and preserve our everyday identity. We ‘do the blah blah blah’. For those of us who are more purposive, there is an achievement-oriented version of this, which is sorting out actions and commitments. We move things along a notch or two, allocating tasks, tracking milestones. The effect is to reduce the relationship to dot points on an action plan.

It is only in rare moments that we pause, look and listen, or someone we admire pulls us fiercely into line. We stumble into something important. A moment of deep self–insight. A flash of love and generosity. Last week, I listened to my 30 yr old niece describe her experiences visiting palliative care hospitals. She revealed a rare gift for talking gently and openly about death and grieving. I learned from her.

It is Buber’s meeting – the meeting where, in our mutual interaction, we allow something important to shift or change. My surprise at how a tiny but bold and generous decision can open up a world of honest sharing.