As you know, I spend a great deal of my time traveling from here to there, be it continents, cities, or states. One of my most recent jaunts was to the great state of Georgia for training camp for the next World Race squads.
(Here is the “proud parent” moment…….as I show you the 74 July racers that I will be leading to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Ireland, and Eastern Europe!) Here they are—————————->>>>
Anyway, as a result of traveling I spent a little time in the Detroit airport waiting for my flight to leave (naturally it was delayed an hour……standard Detroit). So, what do you do with yourself with an unexpected extra hour in the airport? Naturally: People Watch.
And so I sat down positioned toward the busy hallway filled with bustling people, writing my observations in my journal. I decided that I would just smile at people and see how they reacted. Here is what I observed:
-The majority of people didn’t know how to respond to me smiling.
– This “unsureness” lead to one of the following responses:
– quickly looking away
– a look of “sorry” or “whoops, you caught me” on their face
– in one case, simply smiling back
Yep, just one. Just one person out of an estimated 80 people, smiled back. To be fair I did also see one other woman who was so full of joy that she didn’t even notice me as she happily walked down the way.
These observations led me to a series of questions, the main one being: Why did people respond the way they did?
Are we a culture of shame? Should we not even look into the eyes of a stranger for fear of seeing beyond the eternal? Are any of these people happy? REALLY happy?
I think the reactions I observed were fairly ironic. Everyone is trying to hide from everyone else, all the while failing to notice that there may be people around them that have paused long enough to look even slightly beyond themselves. So, while trying to hide they are oblivious to the fact that their body language and facial expressions are broadcasting that which they are trying to hide. I saw that people were lonely, bored, angry and tired. I could see that people felt hopeless, forgotten.
So the moral of the story is……. I choose not to hide. I choose not to hoard that which has been given to me freely: love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. It’s the action that counts, not the reaction.
Freely you have received, freely give.
-Matthew 10:8
