As I walked the streets and scrolled my screen this past Halloween, a common costume emerged, mostly among adults that decided to join in the fun. It was a simple get up, but immediately recognizable for most of us that might enjoy a popular Apple TV series  – and therefore easily identify the uniform of a man that has become a bit of an unexpected cultural superhero, not because of his extraordinary physical prowess but because he’s startlingly, extraordinarily… NICE: Ted Lasso.

Jason Sudeikis plays Ted, a soccer coach who was deceptively hired to fly across the pond to lead the AFC Richmond team to complete … failure. But the plan failed not because Ted developed the team into a winning machine but because of the big success in the small victories he won off the field.

Ted is remarkably unique in how he approaches people and situations, especially the unpredictable, volatile and crusty kind. In his orbit, even the edges of the toughest nut somehow soften. When Ted meets a person, they’ve got a clean slate. He doesn’t size someone up or pick them apart. He’s bold and yet disarming. He doesn’t write a person’s story before they have a chance to tell it. He’s not afraid of anyone and no one is too much for him. He offers a charming dose of radical optimism and a general philosophy of, “Be curious. Not judgmental.”

Somehow the entitlement of most people rolls right off his back. He catches all species of humans off guard with his care and kindness and humor and has caught the TV-watching audience off guard who find themselves invested and inspired, fascinated by his patience and resilience. You can’t help but love him. And we sure seem to love watching Ted’s Lasso love others, even as he learns to love himself.

I think the show is a phenomena because it will always be phenomenal to witness the power that love and kindness have to heal the hearts’ scrapes. 

I believe that part of why the show is successful is that it represents what feels like watching the antithesis to what it feels like in the real world. In the real, irritable world, people like Ted are not who you normally bump into. And so the overwhelming response to the show, the tenderness with which people talk about it, gives me hope that a fairly large part of society might have a collective desire to want to take a chance to live a little more like Lasso.

While Ted whips out some amazing one-liners, I would argue that it’s his actions, in response to his observations of people, the little actions he takes in the way he meets a need, big or small as they may be, end up speaking even louder than his wonderful way with words.

Through the simple baking of biscuits, Ted chooses to see people and see what people need, which is of course mostly to be seen. How Ted directly and creatively meets those needs changes how those people see themselves. And just like Ted, our actions, the things we do, have some real, live power to restore some civility in the face of the world’s expected hostility.

But we rather often become instead who the world wants to turn us into – and we see nothing but ourselves. We operate so busy we cannot see beyond our Google calendars. So managed we can’t risk interruption. So threatened we can’t relate or relax. So right we cannot hear. So focused on trying to survive we feel we have no choice but to close our eyes and doors and blinds and homes and wallets and hearts. We often then miss the person that has been put in our path that needs a hug or a little help. We often miss the chance we have to find simple ways to look for need and offer love in our every day lives that are right under our noses or to take a minute to think about how we can explore serving the person or cause that’s been niggling in the back of our minds. 

There is also something about how Ted sees not just the need, but the person with the need that reminds us that every person is worthy of another’s time and attention through a little love in action. 

For me, before COVID divided, it unified. Personally, while I distanced myself from the outside world, I grew closer to the people in my own cul-de-sac, remembering to actually love my actual neighbor. We sipped coffee on our front lawns, circled up appropriately separated chairs, exchanged numbers and regularly checked in. Professionally, I found myself in the privileged position of match-maker between needs and need-meters, awash in the waves of generosity and humility between people suddenly aware of their abundance and those brave enough to reach out in their vulnerability. I saw our mission, that Everyone Deserves to See Themselves and Be Seen as God Sees Them, accomplished through every dollar contributed, every doorstop delivery, through every window wave and air hug.  

Jesus walked around the earth leaving breadcrumbs that led back to the heart of God. He made a habit of resting His eyes on the overlooked. He stopped when the diseased leper found the courage to come of his cave, healing his sore-scoured body and leaving in place a soul ready to spread a contagion of grace. He stopped and saw what the angry centurion, the bleeding woman and the paralyzed man needed beyond their hurting minds and bodies, deserving of the same acknowledgement as the healthy and the upper crust. And I believe it is through that lens that God asks us to see those that feel unworthy and forgotten, exposed and yet invisible.

I wonder about the tension that COVID has created between protecting our health while balancing the dangerous distance our modern-day leprosy has created between us. Even though we can often only see each other’s eyes it has become that much easier for people to look away from them. This seems especially true when it comes to the materially poor. 

Some problems can be solved with a checkbook. But when we have a chance to get in and get close to a human being in real need, and be curious and not judgmental, checking our ignorance and arrogance at the door, we have a lot to learn. We discover that there are many forms of poverty and therefore many ways to help those experiencing poverty and if it’s not done thoughtfully helping really can hurt. That in the literal sand of our land, lines were drawn to keep the poor powerless, without voice or access or ability. That the way out of poverty is not just through a good job and money but through friendship. That the poor exclude themselves because the world does not believe that they have wisdom. When we don’t just meet a need, but choose to share in it, the us versus them stops and we recognize that all of us need God and his grace to get through. 

Whoever it is we bump into, and whatever need we might get to see, I hope we find the courage to look up and look in and not be cut off. I hope we take a minute to bake the biscuits or drop off the silly trinket for the friend starting chemo or help the old lady in front of us in line counting her change or genuinely smile at the person without any silver in their pocket.

I hope we choose to respond with goodness and kindness and generosity and patience with the things we say through the things we do. Because maybe people are tuning in and finding themselves as ripe as they are bitter to believe in someone and in something, ready to receive as well as offer that goodness and kindness and gentleness and patience and self-control in return, and discover the source of a new way to carry hope into the heavy heartbreak of this world. Let’s share a little love in action that catches people wonderfully off guard – the kind of love that doesn’t keep score and sometimes, just does.