Every contact leaves a trace

It isn’t very fashionable to have a text for your sermon, but I’m rather old-fashioned, so I often do. However, my text today is not from the Bible; it isn’t even from a religious work; it is a phrase that was coined by a pioneer in forensic science call Edmond Locard.

Locard’s principle is usually stated as:

“Every contact leaves a trace”

I discovered this when I read this book: “Blue: A Memoir” (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33971331-blue)

It’s by John Sutherland, a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police. It contains stories about his work and reflections on the effects that his experiences have had on him. He also happens to have a strong Christian faith, but I didn’t know that when I started reading the book. I was hoping to learn more about what life is like for my friends in the police force. What I got was something different altogether. I’d like to read you an extract.

Blue pp. 60-62, which explains Locard’sprinciple and suggests that it can also be applied to interactions between people.

This set me thinking. Because he’s right, isn’t he? Every contact that we have with another human being leaves a trace – a small change in both of us.

“Every contact leaves a trace.” But most of the time we don’t think about it. We don’t think about the effect that our sarcastic comment may have on the self-confidence of the person whom we have just put down with a clever quip.

We underestimate the impact of our tone of voice or facial expression, which may give away our irritation, our impatience or the fact that we are not really interested in the person who is standing in front of us trying to tell us something.

And we may underestimate the positive effect of our actions too.

John Sutherland tells a story about a small incident that took place during the days following the 7/7 London bombings. It was swelteringly hot, ant yet his police officers were patrolling in non-breathable reflective jackets over full body armour. A member of the public noticed how hot they were and bought ice-creams for them.

Just a nice gesture? In a way, but it signified her admiration for what they were doing and her recognition of their role in keeping Londoners safe. She probably never realised how much it was appreciated.

Too often we may be tempted to wring our hands in despair, thinking that there is nothing that we can do to ease a difficult situation or solve an intractable problem.

For example, we sometimes talk about our carbon footprint and the way in which our individual small choices can have far-reaching consequences for our world and for future generations. It’s the same with everything that we do: the small things – the repeated drip, drip, drip of tiny deeds – can add up to something of great consequence over time.

Just because we can’t solve all the problems that we see around us … just because we don’t have the power to fix all the big things that are wrong … just because we don’t always even know what to do for the best … that’s no reason to give up on what we can do.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

And the small things, done with love, can add together to make things happen.

“Every contact leaves a trace.” In another place in his book, John Sutherland talks about the need to address the underlying causes of crime: the domestic violence that means that children are being brought up in environments where brutality is the norm; the culture that makes young men and boys believe that they have to carry knives in order to be safe; the poorly-designed housing estates where criminals can lie in wait unobserved.

Too often, decisions are made based on a desire for quick-fixes and immediate results. But the things that work often take time – more time that we are prepared to allow – certainly more time than the duration of a government or a local council. But, he says, “We need to do this in the knowledge that we may not see the full fruits of our labours for ten, twenty or even thirty years. We need to do these things because they are the right things to do.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting to the stage where I have to accept that, if I’m not going to see my efforts bear fruit for thirty years, that probably amounts to saying that I won’t see them at all!

But then, it’s not about us, is it? We should be making choices based on what is the right thing to do, not in order to get a feeling of satisfaction at seeing the final outcome, still less for the sake of being congratulated for our deeds.

“To give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labour and not to ask for any reward …” as St Ignatius Loyola put it.

“Every contact leaves a trace.” As a Church we need to be aware of this, because it means that we have to be careful how we behave towards those around us. If you work for an organisation, you will be made aware of the need to protect your employer’s reputation by behaving in a professional manner whenever you are identifiable as an employee of the firm. In the same way, we have God’s reputation to think about in every interaction that we have with other people.

Every time someone comes into this building, their attitude and opinion towards us and, through us, towards our faith and towards God himself is being changed. If they feel welcome, they are more likely to go away thinking that perhaps there could be something in this Christianity stuff.

That doesn’t mean that we can expect them to come back again next week, still less that they will join us on a permanent basis or volunteer to sit on the property committee. We may never know what effect our contact with them has had – and they may not either, but perhaps we will have sown a seed, something as small as a mustard seed that will bear fruit ten or twenty or thirty years later and in another place, another country, another continent.

And we also need to take care of more indirect contacts that we have with people – through what we say and do outside of the church building, and by pronouncements made in the Church’s name. Jesus said that He came to seek out the sinners, not the righteous people, but how are they to hear about Him if we all keep our distance? And how will they come to realise that He is calling them, if the only words they hear from the church are words of condemnation? And how will anyone take us seriously if all they ever hear from the church is whining about someone not being allowed to wear a crucifix at work, and arguments about same-sex marriage?

This is how Madeleine L’Engle puts it:

“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

“Every contact leaves a trace.” And every person has been moulded by countless contacts that have taken place during their life, beginning from when they are children and continuing right through to death. That is one reason why it is not for us to judge the actions of other people.

We don’t know the events that have shaped their character making them susceptible to temptations that pass us by.

We don’t know how many times people like us have hurt them in the past, either deliberately or inadvertently, making them suspicious of our words and reluctant to believe in our good intentions. We don’t know what traces have been left on their lives by the contacts that they have experienced.

And when I say “people like us”, this could be older people, young people, white people, black people, educated people, working class people, northerners, southerners, people who dress like that, people who like that sort of music, religious people, … feel free to add your own stereotypes. We all belong to lots of different groups and those who aren’t in them may have had contacts with other members of our groups which have coloured the way they see us.

The only person for whom we may have some understanding of the history of countless contacts that have formed them is ourself. And even then, we may be less aware than we think that we are.

Opinions that we believe we formed by our own reasoning may in fact have their origins in prejudices formed during childhood. Our hopes, fears and ambitions are all influenced by our upbringing and by our interactions with the people around us. We should be wary of taking pride in our achievements –which may be less our own unaided work than we think – and equally wary of falling into despair at our shortcomings – we have been changed in the past and we can change in the future; the important thing is to make every effort to see that we change for the better.

“Every contact leaves a trace.” But we don’t usually think about the effect that every interaction that we have with another person has on us ourselves.

“Blue” is subtitled “Keeping the peace and falling to pieces”. The final chapters are about a mental breakdown. Deep depression caused by the cumulative effect of more than twenty-five years of police work – the drip, drip of water on a stone, which gradually wears it away. Being first on the scene at a fatal road traffic accident, seeing children cowering in the corner when attending an incident of domestic violence, failing to talk down the suicidal young man determined to jump, breaking the news to yet another family that their loved one will not be coming home. And all the time, being expected – an expecting yourself – to be the strong one who can cope in every situation.

Most of us don’t face those sorts of thing on a day-to-day basis. But we too may go through times of stress and difficulty … and we too may be reluctant to admit to being changed by events that happen to us. We too may be determined that we will not give in or admit that we need help, or time to recover, or a change of scene. We too may be afraid to say “no” for fear of letting other people down or because we think that we ought to be strong enough to cope with everything that life throws at us.

But sometimes, the strong thing to do is to say “no” or to ask for help or to seek medical advice. ‘sometimes the bravest course of action is to admit – to ourselves as well as to others – that we can’t go it alone.

I’ll finish with some more words from John Sutherland’s memoir.

“But faith? The truth is, I am less certain of more things than I have ever been before. I have many more questions than I have answers. But I have begun to discover this thing called grace: the rumour that I am loved beyond measure, just as I am.”

Let us pray:

Father God, we ask that you will keep reminding us, every day as we make our way through life, that every word, every gesture, every look, every touch leaves a mark on those that we meet. And we pray that you will help us to speak and act in ways that build confidence, promote harmony and enable growth in those around us. Amen.

Taking your own footprints at home

This recipe can be used to illustrate how we leave impressions behind us on everything and everyone we touch. It's particularly relevant in congregations with children present, but adults find it fun to do too!

• Take an old shoe and paint the bottom with cooking oil.
• Press it down on to a blank sheet of paper.
• Sprinkle drinking chocolate powder over it to show up the tread marks.

Alternatively, you can make fingerprints using an inkpad and paper.