What comes to mind when we hear the term ‘creature’?
Maybe our minds most immediately go to something SCI-FI or perhaps to something in the depths. Whatever our definitions or working understandings may be, what characteristics of creature are involved...when applied to another human-being?
For me, one nuance of the term creature is otherliness. In the context of another being — even a human-being — is there not nearly always some element of otherliness about anyone? Something I don't really know (or can't really know)?
Or, if there isn’t, should there be?
Most, who have some healthy degree of sensitivity, would not automatically approach a new living thing they’ve encountered with the automatic intention to disturb it. Rather, there is often a certain dimension of respect for what it might be that we are actually seeing. What is this thing? What kind of a creature is it? What unique things about it should I be either aware of or sensitive to? Is it dangerous? Is it shy? Is it as curious about this encounter as perhaps I am?
Whatever it is, we tend to respect something when we encounter a creature (of one kind or another), often perhaps through the use of things like space. For example, we don’t automatically just charge at it; and, we may not need to immediately run away from it either — we try to leave enough space to see what will happen. Something happens in such situations that seems to be pretty close to a kind of respect for whatever it is that we are not familiar with about the other (creature). This is why the term otherliness seems, at least, partially descriptive of such situations.
When I run into seeing, say, an animal in the wild, more often than not I try to not immediately spook it off by any suddenness of action on my part. This happened yesterday when I came across a deer. I nearly walked right into as it stood there just looking at me. And, then it simply went back to eating nearby leaves.
When a new baby is born, we often at one point or another wonder what kind of a person it will grow to be. What will it be like? What won't it like? What things will happen in its life that will shape it? How is it already made that will guide its natural response to things? Until then though, and we know it better, we just don't know what exactly the person is, in this new little body. It, too, is still a bit other to us.
Too often, otherliness (especially collectively) in general, seems to illicit all kinds of forms of...disrespect. If it's different, we tend be somewhere between suspicious and...just not liking it. We want things to be...like us.
I suspect, however, that a more, in fact, natural response to the uniqueness of any creature is actually…respect — a genuine curiosity about it that seeks to honor whatever it is, rather than simply tame it into likeness we prefer (ours).
Somehow along the way, we tend to unlearn this God-given response (perhaps because we get so tangled up seeking our own identity through all kinds of acceptance). But, it might do well to reconsider how each living thing is like a creature of its own being (not unlike we are ourselves) and start with, if not maintain, a sense of respect, curiosity, and wonder.
