I have a friend named Jessica that I’ve known since middle school. People often assume we are siblings. She’s half Chinese and I’m half Korean.

I have often been mistaken for Jessica’s brother, in part because we share some vaguely-Asian physical traits, but also because I get mistaken for her actual brother, Sam. Sam is a couple of years older than I am, and we actually do look alike.

Sam is a talented musician and I remember attending his senior recital and the reception that followed. At the reception, a long time family friend, a woman in her mid fifties, approached me and congratulated me on my (Sam’s) performance. I wish I could say I corrected her mistake then or even the second and third time she did the same thing that evening. Instead, I stood paralyzed with social awkwardness as another friend stepped in and broke the news to her.

In the uncomfortable silence that results from disclosing my identity, I can’t help but hear that worn racial generalization: “You all look the same.” That phrase stands as an identity neutralizer, a mis-given abstraction, a barrier to veneration.

The woman apologized profusely and explained that she wasn’t wearing her glasses, but it did little to alleviate the discomfort we both felt.

I find it quite disorienting to be mistaken for another person. It is often an honest mistake. However, I am left feeling simultaneously invisible and at the center of unwanted attention. It feels as if my individual identity has been erased or eclipsed by some other person living in my skin. Sometimes that invisibility or eclipsing of my identity falls squarely within the realm of seeing me as a generally Asian looking guy like the few others someone might know.

Yet, for as often as I’ve experienced this lumping together of identities based on my race, I know that I have grouped others together or defaulted to racial or other generalities.

The other day I greeted a black classmate by the wrong name and only later realized that I had used the name of a different black acquaintance. The name I referred to him by was a very stereotypical name for a black man. I had inadvertently given him the “you all look the same” treatment, one that I know from experience is often hurtful and disorienting.

It really is a result of my inattention and it emerges out of carelessness. It goes beyond just forgetting someone’s name and needing to have it repeated. It speaks to a more troubling realization that I can remember someone’s face, but not their name, their appearance, but not their identity.

It’s not so much a case of mistaken identity but rather mis-given identity. I erase a person’s particular identity and replace it with my own generalizations. What’s so cutting about the phrase, “you all look the same,” is the implicit accusation that “you all are the same.” When I mistake– or mis-give– identity, there’s no significant difference between my classmate and any other black man. I’ve communicated that he can be exchanged for any other person of similar description and I’ve disregarded all those things that make him unique.

The icons that adorn an Orthodox Church depict saints who have lived all over the world and through various periods of history. Although the icons often share a similar style, each saint bears particular traits. What’s more, each of their stories are unique. Some were poor beggars, some were royalty, some were nobles, and others were holy fools.

Theologian John Manoussakis has observed that the saints, sometimes called “little christs,” became saints “not in spite of their particularity, but because of it, and thus, they are far from being merely spiritual clones of Christ.” Although they are all created in the image of God and have worked to preserve and treasure that image, they all did so uniquely. He said the saints are “like a single ray of light that, once it hits the prism, is defracted into a multiplicity of unique and different colors” (God After Metaphysics, 38).

The saints are not simply venerated generally, but particularly, according to their uniqueness. Shouldn’t we also honor those living icons around us by listening to their particular stories and getting to know their particular identities, rather than simply honoring them generally?

What if we slow down and pay proper attention to that individual right in front of us? What if we learn to recognize and honor each person’s particular identity? Instead of affirming the statement, “You all look the same,” how can we seek to appreciate and honor the diversity and complexity of God’s image in each person? Let’s take the time to venerate the unique living icons around us.

Article by Jonathan Reavis

If you walk into any church with ties to ancient Christian history, you may be struck by the beauty of the icons that line the walls and the saints depicted gazing outward invitingly. The interesting thing about saints is that we often think of them as having always occupied this place of honor in our houses of worship. Once they’ve been canonized, saints are commemorated for their holy life and their stories serve to encourage and remind us to continue to struggle in pursuit of holiness. But for the majority of these venerable ones, their time on earth was not spent saturated with laudation. Quite the contrary, in fact. Many were fiercely hated, even by their own churches. It is only in retrospect that we call them holy and admire their faith.

Perhaps the saints that illustrate this fact most profoundly are those that fall into the category of “holy fools.” In the ancient Christian tradition, holy fools are those individuals that feigned insanity to combat vanity, both personal and societal. These saints are some of my favorites, not because they encourage me, but because they terrify me. The lives of the holy fools are filled with acts that defy social norms, often bringing the need for repentance into sharp focus. Much like the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, who performed such acts as cooking his food over dung to call attention to the sin of Israel, the holy fools lived in such a way as to prick the conscience of a society. The most emblematic of the holy fools was the seventh century saint, Simeon of Edessa. This man masked his piety with acts of absurdity, upsetting conventional definitions of holiness. It is said that he often disrupted church services by throwing nuts at attendees and blew out candles, provoking the wrath of the seemingly pious. He would at times eat meat on fast days and walked around the city gate with a dead dog tied to his belt. He was known to preach against excess and neglecting the poor. He challenged those that would define holiness according to mere institutional conformity rather than acts of truth religion – the care of widows and orphans, as the book of James says.

What terrifies me about St. Simeon is the fact that he could very well have been someone that I have met on the streets of Kansas City. His behavior certainly corresponds to that of someone I might normally consider “mentally disturbed,” a “menace to society,” or simply anyone that makes me feel awkward or uncomfortable. I would have hated being around St. Simeon, and I know this because I don’t like being around anyone that upsets my normal schedule or asks me to give of my time or energy. Figures like St. Simeon, and to some degree, the stereotypical vagrant, make me uncomfortable because they remind me that something is wrong—in my heart and in my society. St. Simeon called attention to the failure of dead religion to care for the poor, and the raving beggar on the street calls to attention the failure of our society to care for those that are abandoned and marginalized. Holy fools disturb the peace – the false peace of indifference and spiritual stagnation.

I often find myself romanticising figures like the holy fool or the prophetic voice because I like the idea of someone who goes against the grain of society. Before I aspire to holy foolishness, however, I remember that these types are often hated because they disturb the “peace” – they also disturb my “peace.” That false peace is often my own complacency, my dead religious piety and refusal to give of myself. When I ignore the voice of those that prick my conscience, I find myself often ignoring the voice of God. It is, after all, the foolishness of God that these holy fools are emulating. The prophecy of Isaiah says of the Messiah that “He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” God often shows up anonymously and speaks through the most unlikely of characters. If I listen to the cries of the holy fools, I become sensitive to the presence of God in those people and situations that disturb my “peace.” Those that upset my life may not be simple inconveniences, they may be the way that God seizes my attention and makes me aware of his heart for the poor. In doing so, He invites me into veneration, to recognizing everyone around me as the presence of God.

I’m no holy fool (just a regular one) and I don’t know how to live prophetically; but I am trying to treat everyone I meet as a potential saint. To do this, I ask for God’s grace to listen and to be attentive to hear His cries for justice in the mouths of fools.

Article by Jonathan Reavis