Influence and Trust

If you’re shopping for a smile, try this one on for size. It’s a ditty I fudged up during one of my more frivolous reveries:

I have a long-stretched dachshund dog, who doesn’t have a notion

Of his head-to-tail delayed relay in showing his emotion.

Today his mournful eyes are filled with tears of woe and sadness,

But his little tail keeps wagging on, enjoying last year’s gladness.

This cutesy bit of head-to-tail doggerel (pun intended) somehow reminded me of Paul’s remarks to the Corinthians, stating that every part of an organism can exert an influence, delayed or not, on another part of that body. “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” (1 Cor 12: 26). Of course, he was referring to our mutual influence as members of the mystical body of Christ. He employed the physical analogy to emphasize the interdependence and co-responsibility that we humans have for each other.

In every encounter between people, by conversation, letter, phone call, dining together, uniting in prayer, or whatever, there is a current of influence, often extremely subtle. This can work for good or for bad, but it is hardly ever totally neutral, even if it seems to be so. Sometimes the influence is painfully clear, as in conflictual situations, and sometimes it is delightfully clear, as in uplifting encounters. Each encounter leaves its impress on the psyche of the participants, forming or malforming the personality to some degree, and, spiritually, channeling or impeding grace to each person’s soul.

This interpersonal influence has multiple dimensions, including support, affirmation, love, advice, compassion, faith-building, and repentance induction. Joni Eareckson Tada, in A Step Further, in the midst of enormous suffering herself, writes, “One of God’s purposes in increasing our trials is to sensitize us to people we never would have been able to relate to otherwise.”

The Lord uses this dynamic, as Paul says, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. . . . Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:13-16

The ingenious providence that designed and continuously orchestrates this interplay of human influence can be relied upon with confidence. Our efforts to maximize the good to be derived from human relationships imply that we are fostering in our soul an undercurrent of trust in him to make “all things work together for good for those who love God” (Rom 8:28).

This excerpt is from the book Pathways of Trust, by John H. Hampsch,C.M.F., originally published by Servant Publications. It and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.