The problem with people

“One of the most redemptive of all moves is that in which we make a real effort to see persons as persons — and not as our servants or masters or teachers or students or steppingstones for our own progress. The real world is the personal world, and this is where all of the major problems are to be found. It is not really very hard to deal with mere things — partly because they stay put, partly because they are not free, but chiefly because they do not sin. Things are not complicated by pride and struggle for power and the desire to impress, but persons are; and they are, regardless of skin pigmentation. The real world of our human experience is the complex world of salesmen, waiters, lawyers, doctors, newscasters, advertisers, writers, laborers, bus riders, all trying to get along, all trying to get ahead, and all concerned, by necessity, with one another, whether they like it that way or not. Each makes a difference to every other person in his orbit. In a sense, each is a physician to somebody; each is a salesman; each is a pastor and teacher. This complex world of human relations is the world in which the life of the Church is tested. If it does not win here, what it does anywhere else is of little significance.”—Company of the Committed, page 110

<idle musing>
But, things are so much easier! Do we really have to deal with people? It's easy to spin a theological web in the abstract, but put people in it and you find out what it is really made of.
</idle musing>