Move from Spectator to Witness
Guided by Krista
Listen daily until you move on to the next Wisdom Practice.
Journal with the ideas, the questions, and invitations raised. Pay attention to how these things surface in your thoughts, in your body, and in interactions and experiences as you move through your days.
Use the Question to Live and Integration Step as further prompts for practicing, and for journaling.
You’re building spiritual and moral muscle memory.
Transcript
Krista Tippett: Bear witness — that is something to live. You might think of it as a move to turn something that happened to us almost all together, collectively, in the year of pandemic, into a moral practice. And I find the words and intricacy Rabbi Burger puts around this so helpful in that spirit. So as you move through your day, notice when you default to being a spectator or a bystander. Commit to shift in some situation ahead to bearing witness instead. What that actually means is going to be particular and different in every given circumstance.
But I find the granular teaching Rabbi Burger offers by way of his teacher, Elie Wiesel, as a practical tool — a yardstick. “Never let anyone be humiliated in your presence.” Take that in, carry it around, and see what it moves you to see differently and to do. For me, this question leads to reflection on times I have not made that move. Pondering that, writing about that, letting it in — letting in the gap between who I am and who I want to be — this is part of the formation we’re called to as members of this generation of humanity.
Consider these words of Ariel Burger. He says, “I’ve had an image in my mind for the last period of time that the world is a baby in our hands, and the baby’s running a fever. And if I were holding a baby, my baby, in my arms, and the baby were running a fever, I would feel two things that don’t always come together that I think we need to bring together. One is such a sense of tenderness and love and open-heartedness, and also such a sense of ferocity and willingness to fight and do whatever I need to do to get this baby well.”
