today, i embark on my journey as an alumni squad leader for World Race Gap Year (WRGY). this will be a year of challenge, a year of growth, and a year of insane adventure with the Lord. it is an opportunity to see things that we’ve never seen, live in insane community, and learn about new cultures. we are going to laugh, sing, and live life to the fullest.
one thing that i am hoping to practice is this…
i want to practice the “presence of People.”
i have been reading a book, on and off, for a while now. each time i pick it up again, i find myself rereading part of the introductory chapter. the truth in it baffles me every time. here is an excerpt.
“…One time, I saw a small robot being used as an advertising gimmick. He was about three feet high, rolled around the floor on invisible casters, and had a semi-spherical Plexiglas head bedizened with flashing lights like a pinball machine. This fellow had gathered quite a crowd around him. People were mesmerized, could hardly drag themselves away. The robot was remote-controlled by an operator who stood some fifty feet away, pushing buttons. Nobody was interested in this human. Nor was anyone intrigued that all around the mechanical wonder stood a crowd of flesh-and-blood wonders, each one inherently more complex and fascinating than any machine. It was almost as if we humans had forgotten how to be alive, so we were praying to a computer to remind us… Wouldn’t we have been better off that day forgetting the robot and spending our time marveling instead at each other?”
I LOVE THIS EXCERPT. how true is that?! when was the last time that you took time during a Family meal or a party with your Friends and just looked at the People around you? when was the last time that you noticed the intricacies of how your Mother moved her hands when she talked or how your Brother subtly says a word differently than you? those things are what make us Human, and each of us is “inherently more complex and fascinating” than anything that we can create on our own. i am blessed to be embarking on a journey that involves foreign lands, but everyone is blessed to see God’s creation all around them.
take a second, look at the intricacies of the People you come in contact with, and accept those intricacies as ways to love them deeper than you have before.
