We Approach Others

In what became one of our most relevant conversations about how The Little Way works in prison—and elsewhere—we explored its application in how we approach others. This topic resonated deeply with my inmate friends and stood out as my favorite practical aspect of The Little Way. The discussion took place shortly after the men were released from a statewide lockdown triggered by several coordinated gang fights across six state prisons in Oklahoma. While lockdowns are common in prison, this one was particularly grueling, lasting over a month.

Contrary to popular belief, most inmates do not spend twenty-four hours a day confined to their cells. Those who do make up only a small portion of the prison population. This extended lockdown, however, kept everyone in their cells, cut off from all communication with the outside world. Visitation rights were suspended, commissary access was denied, and hygiene and supplemental food needs went unmet. Religious services were canceled, and the men were left with nothing to do but watch the clock. Such conditions were fertile ground for anxiety and anger to fester.

When I finally met with my friends again to discuss a young, female nun they had never heard of, tempers were raw, emotions were high, and gang activity was more rampant than usual. I worried they might have no interest in Saint Thérèse—or even in the Buffalo Wild Wings I brought to the meeting—but my concerns were short-lived.

Fredrick quickly reassured me. “There’s no better time for me to read about The Little Way,” he said, “and no better place to implement it than here in prison.” He explained how the frustration he and others felt toward those who caused the mayhem made them want to “take care of it” in their own way. Yet, surprisingly, this “little bird” from northwestern France helped soothe their anger.

Much like Saint Thérèse, my inmate friends are confined to live in close quarters with people they wouldn’t choose to associate with if given the choice. They share their daily lives with the mentally unstable, thieves, liars, murderers, rapists, and indifferent prison guards. If anyone needed guidance on approaching the undesirables in their community, it was these men. Despite their desire to treat people in a Christ-like manner, they wrestle with it daily in their confinement.

Their dilemma, however, is not so far removed from what the rest of us face on the outside. We may not encounter gangbangers, sex offenders, or murderers, but Saint Thérèse still has something to teach us about how we treat the “less-than-desirables” in our own lives. We are surrounded every day by people we’d rather avoid: the co-worker who asks if we have a “case of the Mondays,” the boss’s entitled son, the social media critic who finds fault in everything, the man who takes his shoes off on the plane, those who identify differently than we do, those who vote differently, ex-spouses, estranged parents—the list goes on. Each day, we face interactions with people we’d rather not engage with, and these are precisely the challenges Saint Thérèse addresses in The Little Way.

The Little Way was Saint Thérèse’s elevator to God, and she reasoned that one of the surest ways to come into Christ’s presence was through charity. She wrote:

Charity is the EXCELLENT WAY that leads most surely to God.[1]

Saint Thérèse explained how charity bypasses the traditional means of approaching God by focusing on love for those around us—especially those who are hard to love. She wrote:

Yes, I feel it: when I am charitable, it is Jesus alone who is acting in me, and the more united I am to Him, the more also do I love my Sisters. When I wish to increase this love in me, and when especially the devil tries to place before the eyes of my soul the faults of such-and-such a Sister who is less attractive to me, I hasten to search out her virtues, her good intentions.[2]

For Saint Thérèse, showing love to others brought her closer to Christ because it was Jesus Himself acting through her. By becoming the heart of Christ, she also became His hands and feet. She suggested that when we feel repelled by someone, we can overcome it by actively seeking their virtues and good intentions, choosing to focus on these instead of their faults. She wrote:

Charity consists in bearing with the faults of others, in not being surprised at their weakness, in being edified by the smallest acts of virtue we see them practice.[3]

True charity, she argued, is not shown to those we naturally love and admire but to those we find difficult to be around. Charity means recognizing that people are flawed and weak but loving them anyway. It’s about searching for the good amidst the bad and celebrating it when we find it. That’s the essence of Christ-like charity.

This call to charity reminds me of a time when I worked for a large church with multiple campuses. My campus was located in a lower-income area, attracting many marginalized and struggling individuals. Every Sunday, the narrow hallway that served as our lobby was filled with people who had spent their lives on the fringes of society, seeking acceptance and connection. While some staff members excelled at pouring into these individuals, I must admit I often fell short.

There was one man in particular, slightly mentally handicapped, who made it his mission to seek me out every week. He would call me over and occupy fifteen minutes of my time, despite my long to-do list. Instead of seeing these moments as ministry opportunities, I developed avoidance tactics. I would duck into the auditorium to bypass the lobby or signal to my coworkers for rescue if cornered. These actions haunt me to this day.

Saint Thérèse’s writings convict me of my failures. She wrote:

One feels attracted to this Sister, whereas with regard to another, one would make a long detour in order to avoid meeting her... Well, Jesus is telling me that it is this Sister who must be loved, she must be prayed for, even though her conduct would lead me to believe that she doesn’t love me.[5]

Saint Thérèse reminds us that true charity is found in loving those who are the hardest to love. This love is not a passive tolerance but an active pursuit. She wrote:

I must seek out, in recreation, on free days, the company of Sisters who are the least agreeable to me in order to carry out with regard to these wounded souls the office of the Good Samaritan.[6]

This intentionality echoes the parable of the Good Samaritan, where religious leaders went out of their way to avoid a broken and robbed man lying in the road. It was the Samaritan—a societal outcast—who chose to stop, care for the man, and sacrifice his time and resources. Charity, according to Saint Thérèse, is not simply being kind when the opportunity arises. The Little Way calls us to actively seek out the undesirables and allow them to disrupt our lives. For her, this was the surest way to become Christ-like and draw closer to God.

These lessons resonate just as deeply in prison. My friends admitted that they often avoid those who drain their time and energy, just as I did in my church days. David explained how strong the pecking order is behind bars and how most relationships are transactional. Prisoners form alliances based on mutual benefits—protection, access to goods or drugs, or other selfish gains. If there is nothing to gain from a relationship, it is usually ignored. David quoted Miroslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace to describe this dynamic:

Like the priest and the Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan, we simply cross to the other side and pass by, minding our own business. If others neither have goods we want nor can perform services we need, we make sure that they are at a safe distance and close ourselves off from them so that their emaciated and tortured bodies can make no inordinate claims on us.[7]

David admitted that this mindset is pervasive, but The Little Way challenges it. It teaches us not to avoid the undesirables who drain us but to embrace them instead.

David shared a story about Max, a former inmate who had since been released. Max was widely regarded as the “biggest child” in the prison—a label given not because of his age but because of his lack of social awareness and emotional maturity. He was often viewed as a nuisance. Max was known for bursting into people’s cells uninvited, asking for hugs, and offering to pray for them. He would draw pictures for other inmates—too many, in fact, often leading his unsolicited gifts to be thrown away. He even left his drawings outside for God to “take,” though it was usually the guards who disposed of them. Despite his quirks, Max was one of the happiest prisoners anyone had ever encountered.

David recalled how Max’s childlike spirit reminded him of a line from Story of a Soul:

Yes, my Beloved, this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for You other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape—not one look, one word—profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love.[8]

Max had nothing to offer but his love. He had few possessions, limited understanding of Scripture, and no real theological knowledge. But he loved God with all his heart and proved it through his actions—simple yet profound acts of kindness like giving hugs and coloring pictures.

David spoke of Max with a smile, though he admitted that he and others often treated Max with less-than-loving enthusiasm. They avoided him and dismissed his attempts at connection, even though Max welcomed everyone into his life without hesitation. Reflecting on this, David expressed regret. He wished he had another chance with Max. But rather than dwelling on missed opportunities, he found hope in the many chances still before him to embrace others like Max.

Richard Beck wrote in Unclean:

Hospitality is, at root, an emotional and psychological activity. It is a will to embrace—a will that actively seeks to overcome the emotions of otherness.[9]

This will can be cultivated, trained, and adjusted. Welcoming someone like Max might not come naturally, but The Little Way calls us to push past our instincts and embrace those who disrupt our lives.

Beck elaborates:

Kindness flows toward my kin, my kind. Beyond those borders are strangers and monsters. And our feelings toward these “outsiders” range from blank indifference, to disgust, to contempt, to hatred. Hospitality is the fight against these impulses. It is a deep psychological struggle, fought tooth and nail every second of the day, to make room for others within the borders of my selfhood... Hospitality is about selfhood. It is that space where the dignity of every human person is vouchsafed, embraced, and protected deep within the heart of the church.[10]

Saint Thérèse embodies this spirit of hospitality. She described a time when she struggled to love a particularly disagreeable Sister. Despite her initial dislike, she forced her will to change, seeking out this Sister’s virtues and treating her as though she were her dearest friend. She prayed for her, offered her acts of kindness, and greeted her with a warm smile, even when tempted to respond with irritation. The Sister, unaware of Thérèse’s inner struggle, eventually asked her:

“Tell me, what attracts you so much toward me? Every time you look at me, I see you smile.”

Thérèse recorded her response:

Ah! What attracted me was Jesus hidden in the depths of her soul; Jesus who makes sweet what is most bitter. I answered that I was smiling because I was happy to see her (it is understood that I did not add that this was from a spiritual standpoint).[11]

Thérèse wasn’t smiling at the Sister’s exterior but at the work of art Jesus was crafting within her. If Christ can find something worthy in the most flawed and unlovable among us, we should strive to do the same. Even when we struggle to see the good in someone, we can choose to admire the work in progress hidden within and respond with charity.

The Little Way calls us to embrace those the world rejects: the ones who disrupt our comfort, who challenge our patience, and who offer us nothing in return. Instead of avoiding the undesirables, we are called to welcome them. Instead of tugging on a lanyard to escape a conversation, I could have chosen to engage with the person in front of me. Instead of dodging through a hallway to avoid a sea of neediness, I could have walked straight in, offering my time and attention.

As my inmate friends and I discussed, the cost of these acts is often less than we think. The undesirables in our lives aren’t asking for much—just a bit of our time, our attention, and our acknowledgment. These gifts are cheap, abundant, and entirely within our power to give.

In doing so, we align ourselves with Christ. We reject the world’s transactional mindset and embrace the sacrificial love that defines the Kingdom of God.

[1] Thérèse, Story of a Soul, 194.

[2] Thérèse, Story of a Soul, 221.

[3] Thérèse, Story of a Soul, 220.

[4] Pathak and Runyon, Art of Neighboring, 50.

[5] Thérèse, Story of a Soul, 224.

[6] Thérèse, Story of a Soul, 246.

[7] Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 75.

[8] Thérèse, Story of a Soul, 196.

[9] Beck, Unclean, 140.

[10] Beck, Unclean, 140.

[11] Thérèse, Story of a Soul, 223.