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. Share on X
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.