Observations From The Street Bench

I'm fortunate to be married to someone who enjoys "people watching" as much as I do. When I was young, I used to love to sit in the lobby of the hospital where my dad was a physician. I would watch people coming and going and try to figure out relationships and why they were there.  I still do that. But now in a different way.
In my former blog I wrote about my observations in Mexico, where I went to dive over spring break that year with my dear friends. We stayed in an authentic hotel, ate in street restaurants, and because I couldn't dive as often as they could, I had plenty of time to watch the people and culture. I noted at the time that I've never witnessed such hard working, dedicated people as those I observed in Cozumel. To suggest that all Mexicans are drug pushers and rapists is so offensive to me. But that's another subject.
We just spent three days in the heart of downtown San Francisco. We did all the usual tourist things, but we also spent  much time walking, and taking long breaks on city benches, just watching humanity.
My dear friend Cathy Boyd recently posted a blog entitled, "Seeing God in The Ordinary." I sat and watched with that blog in mind.
I saw God in a weird way these last few days. Because we were sitting and watching, we were prime fodder for panhandlers....18 times in fact. Did I see Jesus in these lost souls? No, but I saw something else more significant. I saw their humanity. I saw men and women hopelessly addicted or mentally ill. I saw young adults that could have been my students a few years before. In those cases it struck me that they were someone's child...they were precious babies once. I'm hopeful someone wonders where they are. And the elderly broke my heart as well. They are not sitting on their walkers with a cup in their hand by choice. Life and society have failed them. These are all God's children. They are you and I if our lives had taken a different turn. I think it is one of the most tragically under-publicized problems of our nation, and I have no solution.
Tourists in San Francisco arrive from every nation in the world. My street observations let me hear so many different languages; so much so that I kept having to remind myself that we were in the U.S. and not somewhere abroad.
And this is what I discovered. WE ARE ALL THE SAME! Yes, there are extremists in every branch of humanity, including our own. But the similarities of normal humans are greater than the differences. For instance, I watched a Chinese mother, a European mother and even a Muslim mother receive a giant eye roll from their young teenage offspring. Apparently embarrassing your tween is a universal habit. Young lovers, old lovers, singles, gay and straight alike, all behave in a universally similar manner. People tend to air their relationships, for the positive or negative, as they walk along a busy street.
Yes. I saw God in the ordinary, in all these people, and it affirmed my belief that if we could stop and listen; if we could realize that what binds us together as humans is far greater than what divides us, then maybe there is a chance for peace and for the human race in general. We are all in this together.
Living in the ordinary,
Continuing the journey.