CowPi Journal

Somebody to Everybody

18 August 2004, 4 pm | Faith, Song

Spirituality is about relationships. Every man, woman, and child bears to us the presence of God.

— Fr. Daniel Homan, Radical Hospitality

I heard this Reba McEntire song on the radio this morning, “Somebody”. It is about this piece of advice this guy gets about looking for someone to fall in love with.

At a diner down on Broadway they make small talk
When she brings his eggs and fills his coffee cup
He jokes about his love life
And tells her he’s ’bout ready to give up
That’s when she says,“I’ve been there before
Keep on lookin’
’Cause maybe who you’re lookin’ for is…”

Somebody in the next car
Somebody on the morning train
Somebody in the coffee shop
That you walk right by everyday
Somebody that you look at
But never really see
Somewhere out there is somebody

Across town in a crowded elevator
He can’t forget the things that waitress said
He usually reads the paper
But today he reads a stranger’s face instead
It’s that blue-eyed girl
From two floors up
Maybe she’s the one
Maybe he could fall in love with

Somebody in the next car
Somebody on the morning train
Somebody in the coffee shop
That you walk right by everyday
Somebody that you look at
But never really see
Somewhere out there
Is somebody

The song goes on for another stanza, but there is a message here. Something happened to this guy that caused him to look at other people in a new way. He did not see others as just plain old people anymore. He shifted his view of people as objects to people as individuals. He made a conscience effort to look beyond the surface, to look deeper into their humanity. He began to look for wonder and possibility and love in others.

Granted this guy was looking for someone to fall in love with, but he was moving in the right direction that all of us should be going. Jesus calls us to do this for everybody, not just for somebody that might fit our specific needs for a specific moment. We are called to remove the conditions and be unconditional. Everyone bears to us the presence of God, and we need to be open for it. We need to look for it. We need to risk reaching out for it by opening our hearts. We need to see the world in a different light, His Light, the light of the heart, not the feeble light of the created world.

“The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.” Make every effort to shift your affections from things that you can see to the things you cannot see, for people who live in the world on its terms instead of God’s, stain their conscience and lose God’s grace.

— The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter 1

If you look at people and just see people, you are missing something.