Marianne

Of all of the attributes and traits that one can posses or develop, I don't think there are many that would argue that love/charity reigns supreme. When you get more, all other positive attributes increase concurrently, and we know that even though all things will pass away, charity will not, nor will it ever fail. So, for many years now, I have been trying to have more charity. I imagine that this is a goal that is ambiguity enough and common enough that many people have and do share this goal, along with the feeling that it is difficult to make much progress with it. I could be wrong.

How do you love people more? It is hard to find an answer that fits for many people. And no, I am not talking about people you already love, or people you serve regularly, etc. I mean people in general. All of them, everywhere. Those are the ones I don't know how to love. And it was not until a few months ago that I made progress in understanding how to accomplish my goal of love and charity for everyone. And it may surprise you that the answer was not just praying to be filled with it. I have done that for years, and I still don't feel any more loving. The thought occurred to me that I could not love someone I didn't know, or more precisely, people whom I didn't know anything about.

Whether or not this was the case, it opened up my mind to a new solution. I remember sitting in the steam room (or was it the sauna?) when the other guy in the room with me started making friendly conversation. I like conversation, so I chimed in and after a couple minutes we parted ways. But something changed in just hose two minutes. He was not just "some guy" he was a student, close to graduation and not sure what he is going to do afterwards. He has certain interests, worries, a name, and a personality. After even the shallowest of conversations, I felt like I knew enough about this person to see him as an individual that I could sympathize with, and relate to on certain levels. In a way, I could now have charity for him, whereas before he was just a body in a room with me.

This started a trend that day, I began striking up conversation with random strangers. I was turning bodies into people all over the place. When I learned about another guys family, and some of his worries and anxieties about his kids, and his relationship with his wife, I felt like I could appreciate him more as a person. With the millions of people all around all the time, I think in order to save ourselves the mental energy we just categorize them into two files: "people we know" (which is subsequently divided up into family, friends, acquaintances, etc.) and "other." Some people may be able to have charity for the people in the "other" file. I know I can't, and I wonder if maybe the Savior can love everyone so fully, at least in part, because He knows everyone so fully.

So what does this all mean? And who the heck is "Marianne?" I'll tell you. I believe that getting to know as much as you can about the people around you (even if it is a thirty second conversation) will make that person get moved from "other" to "known" from the "known" file they can then be loved. It is exhausting to do all the time, because of the sheer number of people around us, but the day I discovered this principle I was on a high, talking to people all over the place like crazy. The final victim of the evening was a cashier at WinCo named Marianne. We had lots of groceries so we talked to her for a while. We built rapport up quick and were friends before the groceries were all bagged. Katie probably thought I was tormenting this poor woman talking her ear off, but it was fun. Every time we have gone to WinCo after 9 since that night, we look for Marianne. Sometimes we'll see her and I will shout hello to her from across the store. She just laughs and waves back. She probably did think I was crazy the first couple of times, but now it is so fun to see her. We will wait in the longer line if it is hers, and the other night we went and she noticed us standing in line and she opened up her register just to check us out then closed it again. I know, its weird, friends with a middle-aged night shift cashier, but it is fun, and brightens both of our days, especially when we don't have to wait to check out. Charity has its perks.

Finally, for those of you seeking a second witness just skip forward to 7:15 on this clip, and you will see that getting to know people can soften even the most hardened dictator.