I'd always heard that a smile can make a person's day. And I really believe that, but I haven't always found it to be true. Sometimes when I'm walking along around campus and happen to make eye contact with a complete stranger, my automatic response is to smile at them. And a lot of times, rather than being welcomed and encouraged by my smile...the person looks at me like I'm a weirdo. He or she has misunderstood me and I'm left a little discouraged. And sometimes when I'm at work as I say "Hi" to each student that I check-in, some completely ignore me. Why is that?
This is my guess. What's become the norm is acknowledging and respecting only those people you know and care about, helping only those that are there for you. It's become so deeply engraved in our minds that we rarely see outside of that perspective. It affects even the smallest of interactions. Our cashiers, those we ride the bus with, our teachers, the smart guy we use to help us get our homework done, those that stay long hours at the end of each day to clean up our messes after we've left the building. If we compared our interaction with a potential boss during an interview and our our interaction with our bus driver...we would see the difference. We treat each other based on how seemingly valuable or how relevant a person is to us. As John Paul II states in Love and Responsibility, this relates greatly to the personalist theory where a person is viewed as a means of achieving an end rather than as the dignified being they are.
Why do we smile at a stranger?
I think a smile means this - the recognition and appreciation of the masterful work of God and the dignity of the person as a creation of God. When we smile at another we see them as a person of beauty. We see a fellow being that shares with us the parenthood of God as Creator. We see a reflection of God's authorship and take delight in it. We also see a person who shares in our frail humanity - who has their own unique set of gifts, their own joys, struggles, experiences, yearnings. We see them as they are and love them, knowing that we are not any better than they. We acknowledge that they, like us, have been called to glorious living in Christ, whether this truth is yet realized or not. We see them through the loving eyes of a loving and merciful God and pray that they are able to see that too.
There is so much beauty in just a simple smile. If only we're willing to risk the awkward glances, the puzzled looks.
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"Our Christian community should open us up to those with whom we share this planet all over the world. It should provide us with a means of solidarity, a sense that because we are members of a human family, created by God, we are all connected and even responsible for each other." - from Already There
