Gets me every time. I’m almost 60, and I’ve gotten very judgy. Like I’m a bout of gout away from yelling at kids passing by to stay off my lawn. As it is, I stare at them intently as they pass, prepared to defend my lawn with deadly force if they try to trespass.
I’ve become quite good at judging books by their covers. I have watched enough Criminal Minds, and studied enough books on profiling, criminal psychology, etc., that I’m like Hotch when I’m in the mall, at church, or staring out my window with deadly intent.
I will identify a person’s personality, their back story their life history, all by how they look. I can explain why they did what they did. I…know all about them. It’s a gift. An awful burden. Ask Robin. She’ll tell you. My awesome, wonderful gift to know a person by how they look.
So we went to Mass this afternoon. It’s Lent, and we’re re-learning how to be Catholic, including the Day of Obligation. Manchester United had their Manchester Derby today; their rivalry match against Manchester City. For the record, the Brits pronounce ‘derby’ as ‘darby’. Why? Because they’re Brits. See? It’s a gift. My Reds lost 3-1. Anyway, we didn’t go to Mass this morning, so we had to go in the afternoon.
So anyway, Robin, Jessica and I get to church and begin filing into our pew. I look across the way ands there is a teenage girl standing in her pew, and she was the epitome of a teenager. Her arms were crossed, her hips were cocked, and her face looked like she had sucked the world’s worst lemon. I nudged Robin and whispered to her, “She clearly does NOT want to be here!” Robin smirked and said something to Jessica, who looked and nodded. I had her all figured out.
Or did I? I’m old enough to be curmudgeonly, but I’m also old enough to have a bit of wisdom. I had an incident flash into my mind involving one of my best friends Craig. I saw a picture of one of his daughters, who I thought was smirking and I made some mindless quip. Turns out she always looks that way, and I felt like a dick. She’s a first-class kid, and my gift was shown to be the sham that it is. I did the whole, “Let’s deliver the profile,” thing and my profile was wrong.
So that got me wondering. In between Bible verses, and songs, and psalms, and other church-type things, I looked at other people there. What were there stories? There was the silver-haired woman with the cutest baby who made very loud raspberry noises throughout the service. Single mom? Grandma? The family behind her was a husband, mom, and two young daughters. The couple to my right looked Hispanic. I briefly wondered what their stories were. I tried thinking about their lives. Based on what I could see.
Gift or not, I couldn’t do it. Imagine knowing the total lives of the people around you at church. What would you do with that knowledge? Imagine having that knowledge for every single person in the world, past, present and future. Just trying to imagine the lives of the few people around me fried my brain, which doesn’t take much, nowadays. I can’t comprehend omniscience. And don’t get me started on omnipresence. Hollywood tried with Everything, Everywhere, All at Once…and all I got from that was a sense of profound confusion.
Maybe we’re all just trying our best to make it through this world. I don’t know why the teenager looked pissed. I vaguely recall being a teenager, and I do recall being pissed a lot. But she has hopes and dreams. She has a history, a future. So does silver-haired lady with the baby, who clearly has a future. So does the Hispanic couple. Hell, so do I. What do people see when t hey see me? A curmudgeonly man with a cane, bearing the same pissed off look on his face that the teenager has?
There, in the church, God was rapping on my head. He had a lesson he wanted to impart to me. He wanted me to reach a realization. Learn a lesson. Maybe it’s that the cover isn’t as important as your story? Ugh,
It’s like God is reaching out to me. I’m reaching out to him, and I just, Can’t. Touch.
Meditations of a Bald, Fat Guy 