Most human beings are better at acting than we give them credit for. Often I'll have conversations with people who are going through literal hell on earth and I don't find that out until much later. Usually I never would've guessed it- they hide all of their troubles behind a convincing, plastered smile.
I started thinking about this the other night after I spent an extra couple of minutes at the library that's located in the heart of our little "city." Though I've never particularly enjoyed being alone at the back of a library that has become the homeless hangout of the downtown area, nothing skeptical has ever happened to me there, so this time didn't feel any different from all of the others.
...Until I started hearing heavy breathing right behind me while I was looking at the Broadway collections.
I turned around very slowly, but all I could see were the sleeves of a plaid shirt in the row behind mine. The breathing continued, but I reasoned that the man must have bronchitis and continued with my search. While I made my way down the aisle, he began making strange sounds, and finally, he started to speak, mumbling nonsensical strings of every curse word known to man under his breath.
(At this point I came to the conclusion that he was either asleep, drunk, or high, and decided that it probably wasn't wise for me to hang out with him in the back of the library.)
No, I'm not planning on getting drunk anytime soon- make that ever- but listening to this man's strange ramblings did make me consider what I might say in such a situation. When we're coherent, happy and filled, it's easy to plaster on that plastic smile and play a part. But, somehow, when we're thrown into unfamiliar circumstances, painful problems, or difficult trials, the real person- who we are at the very core of our being- is revealed. Sometimes it's beautiful. Other times it's not.
For instance, a very stressful situation will either make me press into the arms of Jesus or panic until I feel like pulling my hair out. It's easy for me to favorably predict my reaction, but my prediction won't be accurate unless I'm already in the arms of Jesus. And often I'm too preoccupied with everything else that I deem more imporant to rest there.
Maybe the incoherent man in the library never utters a curse word, but that must be what he allows into his mind and medidates upon, because it's what comes out of his mouth when he has no control over it. I just happened to get an earful of it while I stood in the library.
What am I meditating on? What am I letting become the focus of my day? What am I focusing on when my eyes are closed at night? Whose words am I living by? Sadly, for me, none of the answers are what I wish they would be.
Thankfully, that can be changed.
"A good tree doesn't produce bad fruit; on the other hand, a bad tree doesn't produce good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs aren't gathered from thornbushes, or grapes picked from a bramble bush. A good man produces good out of the good storeroom of his heart. An evil man produces evil out of the evil storeroom, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart." Luke 6:43-45
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