People Sondering Will Blow Your Mind

Have you ever people watched?

This is something I do very often when I am in public. Places like malls, main street, even places like a Walmart can be a great source of people watching. One of the things I like to do is to put myself in the mind and body of the subject that I watch. I ask myself questions like that which I would ask myself normally. Watching someone shopping is always an interesting activity, not trying to be creepy or anything but to simply put myself in their shoes.

“Work was stressful today. I need a beer.”

“I have an interview tomorrow, need to make a good impression. “

“I need to remember to call my wife before I leave to make sure she doesn’t need anything.”

“I can’t wait to see my daughter’s face when she sees this.”

Knowing that every single person on this planet currently, the people that have lived and passed on, or yet to be born are all unique and completely original. Every single person has seen different things, even while looking at the same things. Fifty people could look at Niagara Falls and have a million different thoughts buzzing around in their heads.

Every single person is just as complex, varied, beautiful, complicated, as you are.

So what if we all participated in this? What if we all looked at everyone through different eyes. If we saw each other as complicated and complex, good but flawed, loved but longing for affection. If we truly could see other through eyes of curiosity and exploration we could then see people for who they really are.

We are all doing the best we can, with so little knowledge about the implications of it all.

I am brought to the thought of Jesus on the cross, as he looked at all the soldiers, Jewish religious leaders. normal people gathered around the cross he saw himself through their eyes. As he saw them for who they truly are, he called out,

“Father, forgive them.”

In anguish, he cried out not with the thought of himself, but with their thoughts flooding him like a massive river.

“Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing. “

The thoughts in his head filled with images of all of us in that very instant, everyone who ever lived, even as far ahead as the last man to ever live. In an instant, instead of pleading for his own life, he plead for the lives of every single person who had ever lived. and would ever live. In that moment, he became us, and we became him. He is our vicarious man, vicariously living as us so we can live as him.

Sure, the people who had nailed Jesus to the cross, left their homes that morning. Kissing their wives, hugging their kids, they walked to work with their friends they probably joked a crude joke or two. They probably laughed as their children cried seeing them disappear over the horizon. The religious leaders thought they were doing the right thing, they probably did the same thing, maybe they passionately prayed to God that they were doing the right thing. Maybe one of them bought a loaf of bread and some wine on their journey into work that day.

They though it was just another normal day, that tomorrow would be a normal day. They thought they knew what they were doing… but they really hadn’t a clue.

We think we know what we are doing, but in reality we are just kids playing in a sandbox, playing with LEGOs, drinking Capri Suns. We may do horrible things thinking we know better, but the truth is we don’t.

No one you see when you people watch truly know what they are doing, we are all just going through the motions of day to day life. We are all complex, unique, beautiful, and different.

So as you look at others in their day to day routines, picture Jesus on the cross. Who lived their life in that very instant. Picture Jesus crying out to Father to forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing when you face someone radically different then yourself. Don’t think of things they need to do, think of Jesus on the cross. The rainbow haired, gender confused person… think of Jesus on the cross. The people that are protesting injustice, think of Jesus on the cross. The police officers, think of Jesus on the cross. The homeless person, think of Jesus on the cross. The white person, black person, Indian person, Asian person… think of Jesus on the cross.

Think of Jesus on the cross in every instance you experience. Not only will your mind be blown at the information that will flood you, but you will be overwhelmed by a love for all mankind. No matter who they are, or who you are, Sonder with me, and love others as Jesus passionately loves us.