Copyright: © 1996 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

Pneuma is a journal on spiritual direction and formation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Neil Ellis Orts, M. Div., is an ELCA lay person in Austin, Texas.

For a variety of reasons, I have recently started relying on metro buses for my transportation needs within the city. (Lack of a car coupled with little hope for means of affording a car are chief among those reasons, but I digress.)

There are regulars on my route to and from work. There is the man who dresses impeccably well but whose hair, short as it is, can appear in a number of arrangements. In contrast, there is a man who has hair down his back in a neat pony tail but wears glasses of a fashion my father wore 20 years ago. Almost daily I see a woman with white, wild hair who always has the latest issue of "Time" rolled open to some article. There are some young people that I might describe as "scary" in that I am very uncomfortable with their style of dress, the body parts they have chosen to pierce, or what they consider a flattering hair colour for their skin tone (although I am hard pressed to imagine what skin tone goes well with fuschia.) There are the people who always have their nose in a book (the category I most often fit into) and there are people who stare vacantly out the window or straight ahead. One day there was a young man in a tuxedo with a corsage on his lap. Most days there are people of questionable personal hygiene and uncertain sleeping arrangements.

On days when I don't have a book, I watch this assortment of people. I'd say they are a quiet group, despite the unfortunate bus ride when a man chose to tell me, of all the people in the crowd, about some modern day Nostradamus-with-a-talk-show and his visions of flood and earthquake. Their silence makes it easier to categorize each individual, to make judgments on appearances.

Sometimes, and not nearly often enough, my judgments turn to me, turn on me. I see that there quite likely are things about my appearance that might scare, amuse, or discomfort some.

Imperfect? Oh, yes. Very much so. I see I can be as much a victim of prejudice as I am the perpetrator.

"Forgive us our sins as we forgive . . . ."

I have sinned. I know so because I realize I want more mercy than I have been giving to the other passengers. I have not done as I would like done unto me.

If I were a priest, what sort of penance would I prescribe for this sin? Not a rosary, I think, counting cold beads, repeating "Hail Mary."

No, my prayer of penance is much shorter, sharper, and to the point, said as my eyes rest on the beads that are the passengers' faces.

"In the image of God," I pray.

"In the image of God."

"In the image of God."