What does respect look like?
Respect is placing high value on privacy, even, perhaps especially, between and among people who are very intimate with each other. The deeper and greater the intimacy, the greater the need for individual space, even opportunities for extended solitude.
Respect is listening, it’s having the willingness to focus on what another is saying without correcting, interpreting, or interrupting. It’s developing an eye for what another may need or want and looking for ways to serve one another. It’s having an eye for mood and occasion, the ability to read a moment and to sense when strong emotions may call for deeper understanding.
Respect is having an ear for what is not said. It’s the capacity to read between the lines, to discern what may be uncomfortable to express. It is developing an ear to honour what another finds painful, the ability to understand that loved ones may hide pain, may want pain concealed, from some, but not from all.
Respect is found in the appropriate use of touch, touch to affirm, the kind of that says “You are not alone,” and expresses warmth, declaring the pleasure it is to share life with another.
[Merc 3/20/23]
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