Hello and good day!
I was walking along yesterday out near one of our chocolate shops. I found myself lost in thought.
I was thinking about how it feels to take a step and how it would be hard for a computer to recreate that feeling. It is a simple thing, taking a step.
We do it all the time. Most of us would never think too much about it. I know that I never had before. But there was something in the way my foot was hitting the ground and sending a vibration up into my leg that caught my attention.
Then I felt a cool breeze against my face and heard a gull cawing from up on a lamppost in the parking lot.I started to think about what I was thinking about.
Do you ever do that?
I asked myself why on earth I was thinking about what it feels like to take a step. And then it hit me, this is all part of taking a real step on the real ground.
Each step is different.A step for one person is not the same for another person. Steps are snowflakes. Each one is different.
Because the breeze and the thoughts and the vibration from the angle of how your foot hits the ground are always changing, from step to step, and from person to person.
Then I looked up at the gulls and watched them perched up on their lampposts. Each post had a gull. From time to time one gull would try to fly over and sit with another gull.Sometimes a gull would allow a visitor and sometimes they wouldn't.
Why? We'll never know what a gull thinks. We can guess, but we won't know. We can watch how they act, but we don't know how they think. We don't even know what other people are thinking.You can guess, but you don't know. We'll never know what most living beings think.You only ever really get to know what you are thinking.
\Anyhow, I was walking along, and I saw a friend I hadn't seen in a while leaning up against a wall outside of the supermarket.He was looking out at the parking lot and he had a very sad look on his face.I used to spend a lot of time with this friend a few years ago, but circumstances, life, family, and work made us drift apart.
He is a big old hulking man, 6'5", 275 pounds, and one of the sweetest, softest, most sensitive people you will ever meet.I walked by and recognized him and he recognized me and motioned for me to stop.
He was on the phone, and I heard him say his brother's name and give an address.I stood waiting.He ended the call and reached to give me a handshake and a hug.He is one of these guys who will pull your arm out of the shoulder socket if you aren't careful. Better to go in for the hug right away.
I asked him how he'd been. He fought to hold back tears in his watery eyes. He told me that his brother had just passed away from a drug overdose.I asked how he was holding up.He said he'd made peace with his brother's addiction a long time ago, but it still hurt.
His sister had passed from cancer a few years back and now this. All his siblings were gone.
I leaned up against the wall and stood with him. Neither of us said anything. We stared up at the gulls on the lampposts. After a few moments, my friend looked over at me.He said he was sorry that we'd drifted apart.
He told me how much he'd appreciated the time we'd spent together. I told him I was sorry too and that I felt the same way.We went back to staring at the gulls and watching cars drive by in the parking lot. We just stood there.
I could have stood there all day with that guy. Nothing needed to be said. He just wanted somebody to stand with him.He wanted to feel a familiar presence nearby.
There is a Bible text that I've always wondered about, Ecclesiastes 7:2. It says, "it is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting."
I see now. All that man wanted was for somebody to stand with him. He needed somebody to stand with him and lean against the supermarket wall. To look out at the gulls and be silent and lean.This part of humanity can never be replaced.
You can watch funny videos and laugh. The house of feasting can be made cheap. But to stand with somebody and lean against a wall and be silent. To walk real footsteps on the real ground.
These are not cheap things.
I hope that you have a truly blessed day!
