Today I walked among the unseen. As part of this season in my life, I have to go to University Medical Center (UMC) at least once a month. I have joined the ranks of the medically indigent of Fresno county. The blessing is that I receive "free" medical care. The but the price I pay along with the rest of the multitude is hours of standing inline, monthly paper work and over crowded waiting rooms to see overworked, and over whelmed doctors and nurses. Today I needed to renew my MISP (Medically Indigent Services Program), get some blood drawn and pick up my meds. But all that is for a different blog. The adventure I wish to relate today was the journey to UMC and back.
As I walked to the bus stop, a good friend drove by. My first reaction was to hide. I wanted to avoid the discussion about why I choose to walk to the buss stop rather that try to beg a ride from someone. But as this person passed slowly (they were turning) not even two feet from me without noticing me, the self-centered part of me quickly became hurt almost offended that I had remained unseen.
Everyone wants to be seen, even when they pretend they don't. Every person has a desire to fill a space in the fabric of time. We want to make difference or leave a mark or just know that someone sees us and cares.
This made me wonder. How may times do we pass people without seeing them. Sitting on a bench, passing us in the hall or sitting at a desk in the same room. Maybe we even talk to them, but we don't really see them. We are so consumed with what has happened, what is happening, what will be happening, or what we need to do that we miss the unseen. During the course o
f my day, walking from one bus stop to another I was almost run over by a preoccupied driver. I was walking accros a parking lot entrance when a lady drove around the corner and turned into the parking lot. I had to stop and move out of the way as to not get run over. Even as she passed me she did not see me. She was so hyper focused on where she was going that I almost became another statistic. (There has been a rash of pedestrians getting run over in Fresno lately) How may times have we run over the "unseen" with our anger, greed, or indifference?I chose the term unseen because people aren't invisible. They are there and God sees them. Oh that I could see with God's eyes! Oh that I would put aside the things that consume my time and my needs to be right, or heard, or to be vindicated, because these all come at a steep price to the unseen.
