Something to Think About

It's nice to have those centering moments, those when you evaluate your life and where you stand in the cosmos and give yourself new direction when necessary. It's also nice to be assured that these moments make you a better person. For me, it's not necessarily a quest for self-improvement. It's a quest to focus on what's important and what's not.

Putting things in perspective helps. If you realize that this entire universe, in its immensity and infinity, sits in a dark corner of God's eye, it gives you perspective. When you consider that the Creator could make such a universe, limitless in size, and that this universe would still be miniscule in comparison to His greatness, this gives you perspective. I find it unbelievable that so many can invert this notion, making themselves bigger and more important that God. Though I wish on no one eternal judgement, I find such a sentence just in light of the violation. Remember the perspective.

With regularity, I also try and remind myself that I am here for God's purposes. This makes a lot of things that seem important really pointless and cheap. We give a lot of thought to clothes, houses, cars, phones and other things. These things won't even exist in eternity. They barely exist here, most having such a short useful life. Yet we give them preeminence over things that are more weighty, more lasting, more important. The things that last forever, we push aside. If our priorities were in the right place, we would put all of our energy and all of our resources into people. That "we" most assuredly includes me. I spend most of my time thinking about how I dislike people and how much I like things that don't talk. In trying to maintain this perspective that places people first, I feel like I walk a narrow path which falls off steeply on both sides. One step to the left or the right and I find myself scrambling for all I'm worth to get back on top. Most of the time, I'm content just to roll to the bottom and stay there.

Yet here I sit at my desk. I look around me and in all corners I see things, not people. It's easy to lose perspective. When I'm surrounded by people, I'm not thinking about them as people though. I'm thinking about them as obstacles, traffic cones to be steered around. Yet what I'm really thinking is that I'm bigger than they are. My goals, the tasks at my hand, are more important. Then, if I have a moment of clarity, I notice that I'm looking through the binoculars backwards like a doofus. I pull them away from my eyes and see that we--myself and those around me--are the same size. We are crossing paths on the way from our Points A to our Points B and we all have our eyes fixed on Point B. I look back and see a hand resting on my shoulder, having just shaken me awake. This wasn't my great idea, putting people first. I would never have such a thought. Yet it is a good idea and I'll do what I can to move in that direction.

So what do you do when you make your way through the teeming masses, everyone with their head to the ground, plowing their way through the throng? What I try to do is to make contact with these people. Eye contact is a first. You have to be actively searching for this, too. Verbal contact, when possible, is next. I'm not talking about establishing deep, lasting friendships with all or any of these people. What I'm talking about is acknowledging that they exist and forcing them to acknowledge that you exist. Add value to their life by noticing it. Toss out a friendly word and see if the cat licks it up.

Many years ago, I saw a commercial that I remember with clarity (I wasted quite a lot of time looking for it this morning with zero success). An old woman, matronly in figure, obviously not getting about with the ease of her younger years, is walking down the sidewalk. She passes a young, nice-looking man who catches her eye and says, "Hey there, good looking!" In the next scene, you see her, spirits buoyed by the contact, telling her friend on the phone about the encounter. During all of this, a voice-over is selling long distance service, insurance, investment brokering or Mormonism, but that's not the important part of the commercial. The message is obvious: you can make someone's day with a simple word and simply noticing they are there. I've wanted to try this, but I just don't think I can pull it off. I'm not really sure how important the young, good-looking man aspect is in the equation. Since I don't meet that requirement, if I tried, I'd probably get a face full of pepper spray. One of these days, I'll try it anyway. No guts, no glory, right?

So I offer you this challenge: as you move about, going from A to B, take notice of those around you. As you purposely seek eye contact, when you find it, say "Hi" to that person. Any other variation will work, too: "Hi there", "Howdy", "Hey", or for the truly bold, "Hey there, good looking!".