Choosing Not to See by Shelia W. Gilbert, Ph.D.

What happens when human suffering is close enough to see, yet easy enough to pass by?

While moving through New York City, Shelia W. Gilbert witnessed people sleeping on cardboard, resting beneath makeshift shelters, sitting beside discarded food bags, and watching as pedestrians stepped around them. One man sat with his head in his hands while a small black cat remained nearby. Another hurried down the street carrying the crutch he should have been using. These were brief encounters, but they did not remain on the streets of New York. They followed her home in memory.

Those scenes awakened something personal. Years earlier, Shelia had faced homelessness, hunger, unemployment, and the loss of transportation while caring for her children. Her faith and the responsibility she felt toward her family pushed her to make a call that kept them from living on the streets.

Choosing Not to See brings these experiences into conversation with Scripture. Through the stories of Lazarus at the gate, Hagar in the wilderness, the woman at the well, four determined friends, Ruth, Moses, the grieving sisters of Lazarus, and Christ at Calvary, the book asks readers to examine what it truly means to see another person.

This is not a demand that anyone solve every problem or rescue every person. It is an invitation to recognize human dignity, respond with wisdom, practice mercy, and do the faithful work that is within reach.

Written in a warm, direct, and reflective voice, Choosing Not to See challenges believers, churches, families, and communities to look again at the people society has learned to overlook. It reminds us that compassion begins when another person is no longer treated as part of the scenery.