The notion of walking a mile in someone else's moccasins is a familiar one. Yet there are ways besides strolling to slip into another person's experience. 

A friend who taught for many years told me that once there was a little girl who could not manage to put her chair up on her desk at the end of the day without a struggle. Often she would drop it, or come close to hurting herself. Telling her to do it the right way did nothing. So she watched. For a couple of weeks. Just how was the child picking it up?  What did her arms do? Then she went farther. She tried to copy the way the child held it, swung it, wrangled with the chair. Finally she understood her experience and was able to help the girl with this simple task. 

There were other times when this teacher stepped into the physicality of a student's efforts. A boy whose penmanship was choppy held the pencil in an unorthodox way. So after he was gone she held it that way too, trying to feel what he felt, and to help him more easily express himself. 

She would sit at the desk of each child, to find out what their view of the blackboard was like, their scope of the window, who they were next to. In replacing judgment with curiosity she could come closer to their world. 

How different it is to inconvenience ourselves and step towards another person's path. Ours is so familiar. But there are views worth finding on the other side of the gap. 

Sometimes we can feel annoyed that God expects us to be good. The circumstances around us make kindness nearly impossible. Altruism is a thin response to brutality, or ignorance. 

And yet God did not stay secluded on His side of the sky. He came down for the purpose of trodding in our shoes, and assuring us that love is, in truth, the answer to all questions.