Hearing Both Sides

It is vital to hear both sides. A woman came to see me in my vestry once. She said: "My teenage son has suddenly become aggressive. He's not himself." And that's about as far as her story went. "Is there nothing else?" I asked. No. So I asked if I could see the son. We called him on a cell-phone there and then. When he arrived, he said: "We just moved from a house into a one-room flat." Well, that explained a thing or two. OBSERVATION: I’m wary myself of seeing one person where two are involved. It is not just for the sake of the facts, or of fairness, but a lot may depend on a person’s ability to tell a story, their priorities in telling it, their perspectives -- and if both of them are there, one can see the dynamics, too. The Bible reminds us: "The first to present his case seems right ..." (Proverbs 17:18). And if that is as far as one gets, one may have lost the opportunity for doing a lot of good.