When Did We Stop Seeing the Imago Dei?
on breaking the glass and seeing souls instead of scenery
Ever heard of an NPC, a “Non-Player Character?”
Do you know any?
They’re the people who share your spaces. They are close enough to touch, but somehow they are always just outside the frame. I call them NPCs.
NPC is a gaming term. It’s a term for the computer-controlled characters that fill a story but aren’t part of the action, like the shopkeeper, the passerby, the waitress. They have preprogrammed scripts and predetermined sets of behavior that may impact your ‘gameplay,’ but they aren’t really vital to your mission. They can talk to you in short sentences, but they don’t have real lives. They move through your world while you—the “real” player—carry on your quest.
But NPCs aren’t just in video games. And I know this because sometimes I am one. To the thousands of people crushing in around me, trying to get to the buffet line or waiting for the next tender, I seem to be background code, part of the picture but not the story.
And if I’m honest, I’ve seen others that way too: non-player characters, extras in the film that is my life. I don’t talk to most of them. I don’t know their stories. And I know that I can’t know them all, but I can refuse to treat them as scenery.
When I imagine a world without other people, but with me all alone in a silent grocery store, an empty city, no chatter, no footsteps, no interruptions, I shiver. Because that’s what a world without people would be: not peaceful, but hollow. The so-called NPCs of our lives are actually what keep our world alive. We keep one another from being truly alone.
Still, as an introvert, surrounded by a crowd, I can feel alone, like a goldfish in a bowl—visible but untouchable, circling behind glass, watching life happen without quite being a part of it. I am near, I can see, but I never quite connect.
That’s how anxiety often presents itself in me. It’s not always fight or flight; sometimes it’s just glass. I can see you all clearly—your faces, your laughter, your movement—but I can’t seem to step from watching life to joining it. Psychologists might say that’s just overstimulation or high sensitivity, but I call it being alone in the crowd.
This sensation has been mine since I can remember. And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of hiding and being afraid of the NPCs around me, as if they know something I don’t. Because the truth is, I know something they might not, or rather Someone, and He loves them more than they could ever know, and so must I.
So this trip, we decided to break the glass and rewrite the code. We’re going to stop drifting through a sea of background characters (NPCs) and start meeting eyes, start seeing souls: in English, in French, in Spanish, and in Tagalog.
I actually wrote a little about this on Facebook last week. I shared how we started learning a few Tagalog phrases—the heart language of the Filipino crew who make this ship run. They’re the ones who quietly hold everything together, always kind, always smiling.
We didn’t start learning their language so we could impress anyone. We just wanted to show that we see them, that their language, their culture, and their presence matter to us. So we started with Salamat po (thank you), Magandang umaga (good morning), Ang sarap nun (that was delicious).
The reactions were priceless. One of the servers smiled real wide and said, “Oh, that feels so good to hear!” Then he looked at his co-worker, eyes shining like someone had just lifted a weight.
And I thought, yes, that’s it! That’s the point. That’s what happens when the glass cracks and soul finally recognizes soul, not as NPC, but as a fellow image-bearers, relatives, as it were.
This might be a small thing, but I think it’s the first step to rewriting the code within myself: choosing to speak in ways that make people feel seen, whether through words, tone, or attention. And that starts with seeing them as more than background characters in my story, but as pieces of God’s own creation, each one bearing His image.
This isn’t just a ship thing. It’s an everywhere thing.
The grocery store. The pew. The elevator. Every place is full of souls we can mistake for scenery. And the cure for that blindness is love, the kind that opens our eyes and lets us see people as God sees them. The kind that starts a conversation, asks a question, and learns a name, and maybe even a new language.
Because if the gospel means anything, it means this: no one is a background character. Every face is a soul, a soul seeking, being sought, or still needing to be found by God.
So you want to break the code? Or at least watch me give it a try?
Either way, I’ll get back to you, and we can talk.❤️
