The highest order of all gifts to give another person, surely,
is the gift of dignity.
Dignity is meeting a four-year-old on the street, hand in hand
with her parent, and getting beyond the temptation to say, “Oh, how cute is
she!” It’s meeting the 89-year-old in the home for older people, disregarding
physical or mental state of wares, and getting beyond the temptation of seeing
this person as “over the hill.” It’s meeting the single mum at face value,
without judgment, admiring her tenacity to parent as her best.
It’s coming across the person with a physical disability or a
mental impairment or someone with a psychological disorder and getting beyond
the temptation to treat them in any way differently to ourselves—how we would
command others treat us.
It’s meeting someone who’s lost a loved one and not avoiding
them, but loving them more—being more
available, if that’s what’s required, not less. It’s meeting someone who’s
suffered the collapse of their marriage—and getting beyond issues of
circumstance and just being there, refusing to take sides; being there as an
encourager—particularly of the children of divorce. Encourage the children of
divorce and inevitably you encourage the parent(s) involved.
This list, above, is still far too small. We are all
ostracised to a lack of dignity. We are all judged and condemned by people who
really don’t know.
Preserving others’ dignity is many times about rising above our momentary
social phobia via the integrity of honest courage melded with compassion. There
are so many minorities that test our ability to be sufficiently dignified to
protect their dignity. If we lack the acumen of protecting others’ dignity, we
lack dignity for ourselves.
The dignified will be known for their gift, to others, of dignity. Their motto is
Dignity for All.
Such people have that innate ability to cherish the spiritual
force within the physicality of individual persons:
“Every life deserves a certain amount of
dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.”
—Rick Bragg
Praying for Extra Portions of This
Grace-Gift
The gift of dignity may not fit
very well in the overall suite of spiritual gifts, but it is a gift known to
the most mature of believers. Almost by presumption we can expect those
exemplifying this gift to the suffered a little (or much) in their lives as
they came to know compassion and the blessedness and value of feeling
dignified.
If we struggle with any subset of
humanity—especially the minorities—and we are honest—God will grow our portion
of this grace-gift. It’s a grace-gift because it reeks of grace. It’s a grace-gift,
also, because this is exactly how God treats us; we may be wretches, but our
Lord, the Father, and the Spirit treat us with unparalleled dignity.
Our role is to pray that we would,
in the mode of our interactions, bless people by risking ourselves to create
intimacy—enough and in the right ways—to transmit acceptance and love.
***
Every single person deserves
dignity, and more especially those who struggle to be treated in a dignified
manner. The truly dignified treat people with dignity, irrespective of who they
are, where they have been, or what they think. God calls us to dignity.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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