In their book Next Door As It Is in Heaven, authors Lance Ford and Brad Briscoe discuss the profound loneliness people are regularly experiencing in our world—and the subsequent (and sobering) sense that they have very little value at all. Sadly, many of us contribute to this loneliness and lack of self-worth as we move throughout our day, rarely even lifting our heads to offer a simple greeting. Ford and Briscoe contrast our relational aloofness with the daily practice author Peter Senge noticed among the tribes of northern Natal in South Africa:

The most common greeting, equivalent to "hello" in English, is the expression: Sawu bona. It literally means, "I see you." If you are a member of the tribe, you might reply by saying Sikhona, "I am here." The order of the exchange is important: until you see me, I do not exist. It's as if, when you see me, you bring me into existence.

"A deep truth resides in this cultural practice," Ford and Briscoe observe. "When we merely move throughout our days without seeing people as people, then as far as it matters to us in that moment, they really don't exist. … [But] being conscious of how we approach people we encounter through the normal routines of our day is a step toward bringing … heaven here on our patch of earth."