Month: June 2018

Looking. Seeing

~ Paul Phillips ~ 5 Comments

All I wanted was a quiet place to sit and eat my burger with the Lovely Lady.

It was looking unlikely.

After a tiring day, filled with stress, heat, and hard physical labor, we stopped in for a fast-food fill-up.  A burger and fries, with a coke, please.  And a quiet place to sit.

It’s not too much to ask.  Is it?

The little tyke had different ideas.  He was not happy, that much was clear from the wailing.  I wondered why his parents didn’t quiet him down.  Surely, he could go play on the playground in a minute or two.  Couldn’t they trade his silence for the promise of some time on the slide?

It seemed not.  The noise level intensified.

It didn’t take me long to get unhappy, as well.  I didn’t cry out loud.  I did complain to the Lovely Lady. Out loud.

Then, I saw the boy as he ran past.  Something—I couldn’t quite put my finger on what—caught my attention in the child’s face.  A lady nearby was clearly interested in what was going on, as well.  I assumed she might be related to the little fellow and would catch him up and calm him down.

Calm him down. . .  That’s it!  His eyes!  The little boy was terrified of something.  I said the words to the Lovely Lady, wondering what he had to be afraid of.

In a moment, the lady who had noticed his distress came carrying him up to the checkout counter and found his mother standing there. By this time, the child was so traumatized that he had no voice with which to express his emotion, only gasps of fear as he gulped air through his mouth.  He was shaking, his eyes wild with alarm.

The little boy had been lost, separated from his mother!  Everywhere he looked, he saw only strangers.  Big, frightening adults who looked like no one he had ever seen.

As his mother gathered him into her arms, the gasping and whimpering subsided, but the trauma was still written on his face.  Tears crept into my own eyes as I imagined what a horrible few minutes he had experienced.

“He was.  He was terrified. You saw that,” the Lovely Lady said, smiling at me.

I sat, quieter than usual, and ate my food.

I had.  I had seen him and his terror.  But, it was the lady who also saw him and did something about it.

We saw him.  Mostly, we had heard him, but there was—finally—a recognition that something more than a simple temper tantrum was happening.
                             

And yet, my mind can’t move past the event.

The child will grow up.  He will.  The day will come when he no longer wanders, screaming, through the restaurant.

It doesn’t mean his terror will be any less.

Or ours, for that matter.

We eventually learn how to hide the fact that we need someone to hold us close.  The part of us that is broken can be buried so deep we aren’t even aware of it ourselves, much less be able to express it verbally to those around us.

What if nobody sees us?

Really sees. Us.

What if nobody sees us? Really sees. Us. Click To Tweet

A couple of nights ago, a note appeared on my phone’s screen.  The lady on the other end, a former schoolmate of mine, had a message for me.

For some reason, she had been sitting and got to thinking about me and my “things”, she called them.  She finished her message with a couple of thoughts.

“Everything will be good, Paul.  Everything will be right.”

I haven’t told anyone I was unhappy.  At no time in the last month have I wandered screaming through the local McDonalds.

It doesn’t mean I’m not broken.

She saw me.
                              

You know there’s a difference between looking and seeing, right?  They’re related, but definitely not the same.

For instance, I can look through the drawer in the kitchen, needing a spatula, but the Lovely Lady will open the same drawer minutes later and, in a second or two, see exactly what I couldn’t, picking up the spatula I was seeking all along.

I look.

She sees.

You know it’s true.

I like the phrase that made an appearance in our language—sort of a pidgin English—just over a hundred years ago, the two words that make it up seeming almost redundant.

Let’s go take a look-see.

Look-see.  Important aspects, both of them, to the process.

We begin by looking. That’s where we start.

But, even if we do look, we won’t see if we aren’t aware of the necessary traits of what we’re looking for.

I wonder if we’re looking through the wrong eyes.  Eyes of judgment.  Eyes of selfishness.  Eyes of arrogance and pride.

What if we actually looked at people to see the broken parts?  What if we could look past the yelling and screaming, the cursing and criticizing, and see what really is going on?

What if we looked past the jokes and the songs and the smiles on faces to see the fear and terror that fills the hearts of people we encounter every day?

Our friends.  Our family members.  The bullies.  The belligerents.

Could we see them through new eyes?

Would it make a difference?

Jesus saw the woman who had been caught in the act.  He saw.  Her.

He saw the woman at Jacob’s well, caught up in a vicious cycle of seeking love where it would not be found.  And, looking through eyes colored with love, He changed her life.

Maybe I could do that.  Maybe I could look through the eyes of love. The apostle, my namesake, suggested to the folks at Philippi that it was exactly what was needed.

Stop looking out of eyes that don’t see past the end of your noses.  Start seeing—really seeing—others instead.  And seeing, serve. (Philippians 2:4,5)

Ah.  The miracle of a familiar face in a crowd of strangers!  One who knows you!  One who loves you, in spite of knowing you.

Look around.

See.  People. 

Look-see.

Change the world.

Everything will be good.  Everything will be right.

 

 

“What use is care? What good is watching for that matter? People are forever watching things. They should be seeing. I see the things I look at. I am a see-er.”
(Patrick Rothfuss ~ American novelist)

 

 

The Lord looks from heaven;
He sees all the sons of men.
From the place of His dwelling He looks
On all the inhabitants of the earth;
He fashions their hearts individually;
He considers all their works.
(Psalm 33:13-15 ~ NKJV ~ New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

 

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2018. All Rights Reserved.

We Can’t All Walk on Water

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

I hoped the squelching sound of wet socks in my leather walking shoes wasn’t audible to Charlie as we found a table on which to set our cups.

I couldn’t believe I had been forced to ford a raging river of water in the alleyway outside the coffee shop.  I was on a city sidewalk!  I mean—who would have expected that?

But, as I seem to do frequently, I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?  Let me see if I can do a better job of setting the scene for this uncomfortable event.

Ever have one of those days?  I mean the good ones—the kind of day when nothing can go wrong.  The sun is shining; there’s time for all the activities you have planned, and you have an appointment later with a good friend you haven’t seen for months.

What could possibly blemish such a shining day?

For most of the day, right up until just before the appointment with my young friend, nothing would have been the answer to that question.  Nothing at all.

But then the sky, bright and sunny before, dimmed with clouds and the rain fell. 

No.  That’s not right.

The deluge descended.  The skies opened up and the water poured out over us.  The metal roof above us sounded as if it were a hailstorm, but it was nothing more than sheets of rain from above.

I had been awaiting a message from my friend to say he was headed to the coffee shop.  And wouldn’t you know, in the midst of that deluge, his message arrived.

I laughed. 

Oh, well.  I wouldn’t melt.  Grabbing an umbrella, I kissed the Lovely Lady and headed out to the car.

Looking out from under the edge of the little umbrella, I noticed the light.  The sun was shining.  Rain coming down in sheets, and the sun was shining!  Well, at least that meant it would stop soon. 

It meant something else, too.

From the front door, I heard her voice follow me out to the car.

“I bet there’ll be a rainbow.”

I wasn’t counting on it.

I want to be an optimist; really, I do.  I want to think everything will work out for the best—all hunky-dory and A-Okay.  I want to, but I can’t.

The day was headed downhill faster than a road bike down the Illinois River Hill.  Neither is all that good a feeling.

Downtown, I couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere in the block the cafe is on.  I circled the block, hoping someone would vacate one.  No such luck.  So I parked around the corner, more than a block away, with the heavy rain still coming straight down.

No.  It wasn’t, was it?  The wind had picked up a bit and the still-heavy rain was blowing from the west.  I was protected on the east as I walked—no help at all.

And then, as if being cold and wet from the blowing rain weren’t enough, I reached the alleyway two doors down from the little shop where I was to meet my friend. 

Only, it wasn’t.  An alleyway, I mean. 

It was a raging torrent of rainwater pouring down from the hill above town.  The alley was the only unimpeded path the water could find into the valley, and it took advantage of the lack of impediment.

Six inches deep and eight feet wide, the current rushed, whitewater roiling on top, pebbles and debris tumbling underneath.

I can’t jump eight feet.  I also don’t think that well when the wind is blowing rain sidewise against me.

I wanted a bridge.  Failing that, I wanted to be able to walk on water.

Neither option was available.

I saw a large stone sticking out of the water, probably a piece of concrete washed out of a pothole further up the hill, and stepping onto it, assumed I could push off and jump the rest of the way over the current.

Did I say the day wasn’t going as I had hoped?

The stone rolled under my foot, submerging that shoe all the way to the bottom, ensuring I wouldn’t be jumping the rest of the way to the other side.  I just plopped the other foot down and walked through the flood onto the sidewalk.

Squish, squelch.  Squish, squelch.

My friend, when he arrived, was happy to inform me that there wasn’t a drop of rain falling half a mile away in the direction from which he had come.  He also had found a parking spot right in front of the cafe.

I have since seen photos of the rainbow (you remember—predicted by the Lovely Lady), a double one to boot, that formed in the sunny/rainy sky to the east.

I didn’t see it.

I was busy looking at the rain soaking me.  I was angry about the soggy walk through the current in the alley.

I’ve had time to dry out now.  I have a few observations which hadn’t occurred to me before.  Sometimes, it takes me awhile.

You see, I know I have a tendency to make more of things than I should.  The red-headed lady who raised me would have suggested it was a tempest in a teacup.  Mr. Shakespeare might say it was much ado about nothing.  

Neither would be wrong.  

Still, I’m not alone in being overwhelmed by the storms which take me by surprise, am I?  We all have things which are important to us and when we can’t achieve them in the manner we planned, we despair of reaching the goal.

Sometimes, our joy is stolen by the arrival of a letter that threatens to change our blueprint for the future completely.

Family members become ill and schedules are interrupted.

Friends drop out of our lives and we want them back.

The wrong politician won the election and we’re overwhelmed with apprehension for the future.

The list of potential sources of the rain falling on our parade is endless.  We—all of us—fear the storm in varying degrees, and for very different reasons.

And, besides that, just when we’re learning to cope with the rain, we realize we have to go through the torrent.

Through it.

We can’t all walk on water, you know.   As far as I know, only two men in history have done that.  And, neither of them is named Jim Carrey. 

And, bridges aren’t always conveniently located to trip across without getting our feet wet.

Why does God do that? 

Why Peter but not me? 

Why Moses and the Children of Israel but not us?

Funny thing.

Sometimes trusting God means we just keep walking when the water gets deeper. Click To Tweet

Sometimes trusting God means we just keep walking when the water gets deeper.

Sometimes through is just as good as over.

Sometimes through is just as good as over. Click To Tweet 

We trust and we obey.

And, we get wet.  But, we get where He wants us to go. 

We will. 

Because He promises we’ll not be overwhelmed by the flood.  Or the fire.  When we go through. (Isaiah 43:2)  

Through.  With Him.

The rainbow comes later.  We may not see it at all.  It doesn’t matter.

His strong arms hold us close.  Still.

Even when we’re soaked.  And, when we squelch with every step.

Storms won’t last forever. They won’t.  (2 Corinthians 4:17,18)

Keep walking.

It might not hurt to wear your galoshes.

 

 

 

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
(Helen Keller ~ Blind/deaf author ~ 1880-1968)

 

When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.
(Isaiah 43:2 ~ NIV ~ Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.)

 

 

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2018. All Rights Reserved.