Passersby - Part II

As followers of Christ we are called to pray. 

It’s easy for my wife and I to pray for our family and friends. We pray for their happiness, their health, their protection and their provision. Each day, in our home, we thank God for His many blessings and how He has provided for us. We praise Him for the fellowship of our church and for the blessing we enjoy of living in a place where we can worship freely. We do this daily and it is an easy thing to do. We're praying into our lives, our families lives and our friends lives. Easy. 

This is good, but it is not enough. I believe that our prayers must be bigger than ourselves. The Lord calls us to look outside; to pray bigger. As someone who has been on the mission field, and who harbors hope of one day serving again, I have asked the Lord to place a country or a people on my heart to pray for. This past week I experienced a revelation of sorts in this. I believe I now have a people and place that I can pray for.

But, what of that stranger in front of me or that person selling papers on the corner? What about the couple sitting two tables away in a restaurant or the young person who walked in late to church? I know I can’t change the circumstances of a people an ocean away or of those I see each day. But I do know who can. 

When I see someone I can remember that video. I can try to understand that this person  is going through his or her life with their triumphs and sorrows. Though I may never speak to them I can be sensitive in the knowledge that they are carrying something that is defining them at that moment. It may be good or it may be bad. Either way, they are living their life. And in that moment of seeing them they have become a part of mine. 

It is up to me to decide what to do. Do I continue to pass them by? Can I continue to pass them by? I think not. 

Though I physically move on, spiritually I have stopped. For that moment I can lift that person up in prayer with all they are carrying. I won’t know what to pray. I don’t need to know. In my prayer I just need to place that person before Christ and simply say, “Lord, please take care of whatever this person is going through. Make Your presence known to them and give them peace.”

It may not seem like much, but when my Savior gets involved, it is a lot!

Passersby - Part I

Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”

"A Couple in Green Park, London"

photo ©2013 Gerrie Grimsley

My wife introduced me to something quite profound this week. It was a video that concluded by asking:  

“If you could stand in someone else’s shoes

Hear what they hear

See what they see

Feel what they feel

Would you treat them differently?”

It was profound and it was disturbing. 

Suddenly I was aware of how little attention I pay to what is happening around me. I make my way through my days concerned with beginning and ending well. And somewhere in between perhaps I have done something worthy of the life that God gave me for that day. Sadly, this is not always the case. Not even close. 

I am wrapped up in my life and in the lives of my family and close friends. I live in my world and have my hopes and dreams. The stranger in front of me or the person on the corner trying to sell a paper; they live different lives. They are not part of mine. So I pass them by without a thought. 

This isn’t right.

What is going on in their lives? What are their joys? What are their sorrows? What hopes do they have? What dreams? Where do they want to be or what do they want to be doing five, ten, or fifteen years from now? Why are they smiling? What caused their eyes to be downcast? Do they love? Are they loved? Is there someone out there searching for them? Are they remembered or have they been forgotten? Is there life comfortable or do they struggle? What will they do today? Will they even be here tomorrow? 

So many questions and in each one lives a story of mankind.

“So if you’re walking down the street sometime

And spot some hollow ancient eyes,

Please don’t just pass ‘em by and stare

As if you didn’t care, say, ‘Hello in there, hello.’”

~ John Prine

   Hello in There

Margins IX

The Chicago Sun-Times recently fired its entire photography department stating that it had to "restructure the way we manage multimedia." It is a sad, but honest commentary in this age where print journalism in the form of newspapers struggle to maintain subscribers. In making this move, the Sun-Times closed a chapter in the book of John H. White.

White is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, having received his prize in 1982 for his "consistently excellent work on a variety of subjects." When asked about moving forward, he replied, "I will not curse the darkness. I will light candles. I will live by my three "F" words: faith, focus and flight. I'll be faithful to life, my purpose in life, my assignment from life. Stay focused on what's really important, what counts."

"I will light candles." Inspiring.

Using Time Wisely

Use Time Wisely. These were three words that I became familiar with early on in life. Every six weeks or so, I’d see those words and looking out to the right of them, I usually found a check mark. The dreaded report card! The check mark, of course, meant that I needed to improve in that area. 

If only that little mark meant that I had mastered using my time wisely for that six week. It never made sense to me. And, in the interest of complete transparency, I was also familiar with the words, Pays attention in class. I imagine my teachers would say that I was daydreaming. I excelled in those areas.

I would like to think that I have gotten better at these things over the years. There are still those occasions though when it would appear that I have lapsed back into adolescent habits. I am still prone to dream; always have been and always will be.

But of late my quest for the simplistic life has been fraught with pitfalls. I seem to stay either too busy or too tired to do much in the area of creativity. The desire is there. The ideas are there. What is missing is the time and the wherewithal to get down to the business of drawing, creating something in the garage (though I like to think of it as a multi-purpose studio), taking and working on photographs, and yes, writing. I think about it. I think about it a lot. I just haven’t taken many of the “next steps” needed to turn my thinking into action.

Then I began to think about it. What if I outlined a schedule for my evenings? I have a good idea on what things I want to do. I have sift through the many things I could do and narrowed them down to the things I wish to do; those things being draw, create art with my photography and write. Oh, and still find time to read every night. So armed with this desire and knowing my goals I have outlined the next nine weeks of Monday through Fridays. Sprinkle a few hours in class on Mondays and in choir rehearsals on Wednesdays, and I think I may have something that works.

The challenge now is to make it work. Keep the focus narrow. Work through these nine weeks. Then, we’ll look at the next nine weeks.

Nine weeks? That is the number of weeks I’ll be in class. Just in case you wondered.

Use time wisely. I remember, though I can’t count, the times that I had to apologize for that being checked on my report cards. And I suppose that these for paragraphs are my apology for not being more faithful in writing here. Honestly, sometimes I just don’t know what to write. I don’t feel inspired or creative. But other times I simply don’t make the time to set down and work at it.

Maybe I would do well to remember something my dad told me years ago. I can’t recall his exact words, but they could be summed in this. He said, “Writing is a discipline and you have to be disciplined. Make time to write and when that time comes, you set down to write. You may not have anything to write, but you set down in front of your typewriter anyway and stare at the blank sheet of paper.”

So on we go. Bring on the blank sheets of paper; or in keeping with the times, a blank Pages document.