The briefest encounters can brighten our day. Perhaps that's no accident, but part of how God made us.
Although time seems to have sped by, the pandemic changed many of our working habits, and for millions of people, commuting has become optional. Meetings happen on screens, groceries arrive at the front door, and it's entirely possible to reach the end of the day having spoken only to colleagues in little rectangles on a laptop.
For many, that's a welcome trade-off. Working from home brings undeniable benefits: from being able to put a wash on in a break, to being able to focus more clearly without interruptions.
Yet psychologists are increasingly pointing to something we've quietly lost along the way: the countless tiny interactions that once punctuated our days. A quick chat with the person serving our coffee. A smile exchanged while waiting for the bus. A few words with the neighbor walking her dog. Individually, they seem almost insignificant. Together, they remind us that we belong to a community.
Researchers even have a name for these connections: "weak ties." They're the people we know just enough to exchange a greeting or a joke, but not enough to invite round for dinner. Far from being trivial, studies suggest these everyday encounters can lift our mood, reduce feelings of loneliness and leave us feeling more connected to the world around us.
That may sound surprising. After all, throughout our childhood the notion of "stranger danger" is drummed into us! Many of those who are introverts would rather avoid unnecessary conversation altogether. (The thought of chatting to someone in the supermarket queue can be enough to make some people break into a cold sweat.) But perhaps that's because we're imagining long conversations, when what we're really talking about is something much simpler.
It's thanking the bus driver. Asking the elderly gentleman in the park what breed his wonderfully scruffy dog is. Laughing with the cashier because neither of you can persuade the self-checkout machine to cooperate. Wishing someone a good day and genuinely meaning it.
These moments rarely last more than a minute, yet they gently remind us that the people around us aren't simply background characters in our own lives. Each one carries joys, worries, hopes and disappointments that we know nothing about.
Be willing to be interrupted
Jesus seemed remarkably open to these unexpected encounters. As he traveled from town to town, he continually stopped for people others hurried past. He noticed the blind beggar calling from the roadside. He paused to speak with the Samaritan woman drawing water. He looked up into a tree and saw Zacchaeus before anyone else thought to. Time and again, what appeared to be chance meetings became moments of grace because Jesus was willing to be interrupted.
Today, perhaps that's the real challenge for us. Our lives have become wonderfully efficient. We can order dinner without speaking to another soul, scan our own shopping, work from our kitchen table and spend an entire afternoon communicating by email. Efficiency has its place, but it can also leave surprisingly little room for the small moments that make us feel human.
The next stranger you exchange a smile with probably won't become your best friend. You'll almost certainly never know their life story. But that's not really the point.
Every brief encounter invites us to lift our eyes from ourselves, if only for a moment. It's how we begin to notice the elderly neighbor who hasn't been seen for a few days, the shopkeeper who's unusually quiet, the young parent looking utterly exhausted, or the man who always sits alone on the same park bench. We can't care about people we've trained ourselves not to see, or who have simply been removed from our sights by our own four walls, which we might now infrequently leave.
We often think of community as something we join: a church, a neighbourhood, a school, a workplace. But communities aren't places we simply belong to; they're places we help create. Every smile, every greeting and every fleeting conversation quietly says, "I see you. We share this place."
Perhaps that's why God made us for encounters. Most will be over in seconds, but each one invites us to become a little more attentive to the people around us. Over time, those tiny moments shape something much bigger. They teach us to notice. They nurture empathy. They remind us that our wellbeing is tied to the wellbeing of others. And when we truly feel part of a place, we become far more willing to care for it, protect it and help it flourish. Sometimes loving our neighbor begins long before we know their name.
