Walking with Another
		
	Means being willing to understand another
	to the depth that their beliefs become your
	own, at least for a time...
	
	Means moving your soul in empathy to the
	empathy of the other, not just to intel-
	lectualize what other has to say, but to
	move towards being, for a time, who that
	other is...
	
	Walking with another means setting aside
	your own personal agendae of what you think
	that other should be while listening to the
	other;
	
	Instead, just Being and Going With and 
	Following the other into the territory
	that is mapped out in other's realities.
	
	Moving towards letting another's reality
	invade one such that it becomes one's own
	reality, for a time, is not without cost.
	To do so with the comfort of being rooted
	and grounded like a kite on a string means
	you can fly, your soul with the other's,
	knowing that when needed, you can pull back
	and reflect and become yourself again...
	
	if you must....
	
	Walking in the footsteps without such rooting
	and grounding, however, can wash your own soul
	away like sand in the creekbed does when there 
        is a flood.  The risk of truly walking with
        another person, the letting go of self to 
	                    enter 
	the other's world with empathy and love, is
	far greater to an unrooted, ungrounded person.
	
	Because what can happen is what roots you have
	can be taken in the emotional maelstrom of the
	other ... the other's emotions can become your
	own ... and if the other needs healing in their
	walk, you could come to a place that needs more
	healing than the other ever did...  and the
	commitment of the other to then walk with you
	for your healing might not be the same...
	
	How else, though, can we come to healing of our
	own inner wounds?  If we can't feel validated
	by anyone, and I mean *fully* validated and
        appreciated and to KNOW that validation and
	appreciation ... then how can those of us
	who doubt our own self-worth ever come to
	a place where our doubts are allayed?
	
	Our world is very very good at disenfran-
	chising us from the validity of our own
	individual emotions.  It is very good at
	making us feel stupid or awkward or inept
	at operating ourselves when we fail to do
	so according to society's (or even family's)
	expectations.  "You're broken.  Let me fix
	you!"  We all become experts on how the 
	other person is wrong, is mistaken, is mis-
	lead ... forgetting to look to see where
	the other may be right, may be correct, may
	be well-lead.  And we use our strong and
	strident and purposeful voices, voices of
	sense and practicality, to let the other know
	in our own way of our convictions that make
	us right and the other wrong.
	
	It makes going to a church of headstrong
	individualists something less than empow-
	ering ... particularly when a headstrong
	individual (me) is judging the actions of
	the others as being "headstrong individual-
	ist" in form.  Meeting invalidation with
	yet more invalidation, in our human hearts
	of pride and self-doubt ... helps keep us 
	separate from one another, oh so separate 
	from the time-consuming, loving work of
	
	     Walking with Another...    

	     		of
        	Walking with God.
	
			      -David Eisenstein
			      5/15/1997
        Copyright, (C), 1997.