Surrounded by Miracles

Last week I flew to Melbourne. It was an early morning flight, a very early morning flight, and typically I didn’t sleep very much the night before, so I anticipated a restful journey. The people seated next to me were accommodating and set the tone by falling asleep immediately after take-off. I made the mistake of losing myself in a cryptic crossword for a while until I no longer was able to drop off, and the three boys seated in front of me alternated between fighting with each other and chanting meaningless phrases before breaking into laughter.

Occasionally their father would lean across the aisle and tell them to, “Shut up!”

We landed early in Melbourne, usually a good thing, except that I was waiting for a friend to land and that turned my two hour wait into a two and a half hour wait. So I bought a sausage and egg muffin and coffee at Hungry Jacks, and proceeded to read whilst making the breakfast last as long as possible.

The coffee was no better luke-warm than it was fresh - or what passes for fresh in an airport fast food outlet.

As much as I was enjoying my book, I am, by nature, inquisitive. People who know me might suggest that I’m nosey, but I prefer ‘inquisitive.’ I take notice of the people around me, a little like Sherlock Holmes without the acute deductive ability, and wonder what their lives are like. Everyone is interesting, everyone has a story.

The man sitting next to me had engaged the father of the family next to him in conversation. It was a loud conversation, it wasn’t my fault I could hear that he was a truck driver from the country who was finding it a tough life at the moment and had a few hours to kill before catching a bus home. The father seemed genuinely interested in what the truckie was saying, his wife and teenage children didn’t.

I had the thought that, being a little gregarious I could have engaged the truckie in conversation when I sat down. The Christian part of my brain said I should have done and looked for a ‘God’ opportunity. The tired and under-caffeinated part advised me not to be so stupid and get back to the book, you don’t want to try and be pleasant this morning…

I noticed the airport workers grabbing a bite before, during or after their shift. The middle-aged woman staring at the planes and wondered if she was seeing someone off, greeting them, or just wishing it was her leaving life behind for a while. I noticed the young couples who were excited about their holiday together, the teenagers who were fixated on their mobile phones, and the requisite retired couple who ate quietly, never speaking to or even looking at each other and vowed once more that would never be my wife and I.

I noticed the family sitting across from me, mother and father, two kids - a boy and a girl - and the grandparents. I wondered if they were all going away, or if the parents were and the others were seeing them off, or if the grandparents were and the parents wished it was themselves. Then the mother noticed the odd middle-aged man who had obviously finished his breakfast looking at her family and I quickly looked away.

As I said, I’m inquisitive.

And then it occurred to me as I sat there with my empty wrappers, coffee dregs, kindle, and the voice of my truck driving neighbour still bemoaning the hours he had to work just to make ends meet, that I was surrounded by miracles.

Each person in that airport is a miracle. Each person on our planet is made in the image of God and is known and loved by their creator. Each one is unique, has their own hopes, dreams and sorrows. Each one has a story.

I think Jesus was inquisitive. He took the time to notice people, to actually see them. It didn’t matter whether they were rich or poor, whole or hurting, humble or proud, respected or rejected, he saw them. He saw the miracles that they were, the stories they lived and the possibilities they represented. Every individual carried the potential to touch another life with one act of kindness, one gentle or encouraging word, one generous gesture. Every individual carried the potential to remind someone else that we aren’t alone on this planet, we are connected, and even without realising it somehow echo the broken, flawed and damaged echo of the God in whose image they were created.

Or, conversely, they could do the opposite. They could touch another life in a way that echoes the hurt, pain, injustice, greed, selfishness, indifference and hate that are so much a part of the human condition and our experience of life.

Each person, you and me, have the opportunity each day to be more human or less human, more like Jesus or less like him, to image the possibility of a kingdom and a life that isn’t like our current experience or to surrender that hope and do further damage to ourselves and others by the way we behave.

Every day we are surrounded by miracles. Every day we have the opportunity to remind our world that there is a different way of being human, a way that actually sees those around us and engages with the hope of a new and better tomorrow. Some might call it, ‘being the change you want to see’; Paul called it, ‘…the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain’; Jesus called it, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’

You don’t have to be in an airport to see the miracles and the possibilities around you. You could be in a shopping centre, in a school, in a University, a workplace, a kindergarten, a park, a car, or anywhere there are people around you. All we have to do is look, notice, be attentive to those around us.