I’m standing in front of the Lufthansa Senator Lounge, their version of a First Class Lounge, in Dusseldorf Germany.
I’m waiting.
It’s 5:21am and the lounge opens at 5:30am.
Waiting.
What do I do with 9 minutes? Should I get out a book? A Laptop maybe? Check my iPhone? Check my Blackberry? Pull out my Archos media player? My nook?
As I go through a mental list of possible distractions, evaluating their potential to maximize this 9 minutes by location in my carry-on and boot up time, I am asked a question from beyond — or given a statement that is as loaded as a question rather.
Why not just wait.
“I AM waiting,” I respond to the cosmos, “I am looking for something to do WHILST waiting!”
Why not just wait.
And it strikes me like a bolt of lightning that something is terribly wrong with the soul of a man who cannot just “wait” for 9 minutes.
Wait. Just wait.
So I wait and open up my spirit to what waiting means. And what I see is a flood of humanity, cascading upon me like water from a dam who can no longer support the weight of the lake behind it. In a single gaze, I see windows, lights, air ducts, smartly hidden cables, food, floors, and people rushing to their gates.
And all of those things, have more humanity behind them. Windows have been washed by someone, lightbulbs replaced by someone, cables hidden by someone, food prepared by someone.
And all that humanity has humanity behind it. The window washer has a family back home in Poland, the lightbulb replacer lost a daughter to trafficking, the cable hider laments the loss of his wife, the food preparers labor all night to earn enough to barely put food on their own table.
A sea of humanity is revealed in my waiting.
How much humanity do I miss, buried in a book. How much of life passes by while I am nervously checking email? How many people’s live do I miss while waiting for one of the plethora of electronic gadgetry to boot?
Genesis tells us that man was created in the image of God. Then, by missing humanity, I am missing God. And by missing God, I am missing the Point. Entirely.
To see humanity, to really see it is to see God. When Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second like unto it to love our neighbor, he was drawing our attention to the fact that to love our neighbor (and ourselves) IS to love God. We cannot love God and not love our neighbor. They commands are connected. The cannot exist apart from each other.
Love God. Love Others.
And how can I love either when I don’t make time to see them?
Why not just wait.
See, waiting is not just waiting. Waiting is allowing my spirit to use my eyes to cause my brain to really see. Waiting is walking with my spirit out. Letting my spirit guide by soul and body.
Lord, give me the grace to wait. To slow down and see humanity and in it, You.