People in airports talk too much, and a lot of them are just too loud.
I don’t know what it is about airports.
Maybe it’s the temporary anonymity of it all. You’re flying with and sitting with people you’ll probably never see again. Rarely does someone ask your name. Just, “Where you from?” Or, “Where you headed to?”
But the stuff they volunteer to anyone within earshot.
A few years ago I flew from SoCal to South Bend, Indiana to do a TV interview about my book, Reborn to Be Wild. I’m not a small-talk guy. Like a lot of writers and people who get paid to do a lot of talking, I’m pretty-much non-verbal in public situations. But I know how to listen, and here’s what I learned:
- The lady waiting for my twice cancelled commute from Chicago to South Bend with the hard face of an over-the-hill party girl wearing the too-tight sweat pants is going to lease a home near her estranged husband who is living with his girlfriend. “He doesn’t know I’m coming. But I gotta do what I can to try to get him back. You know?”
- The corporate-type guy talking to his buddy on his bluetooth at the urinal (now there’s a picture) is telling his friend that “her” parents need to be out of the picture and, “If you can prove you’re the father by a DNA test, there’s nothing she can do to keep you from having visitation rights, even if you only lived together.”
- The couple who seemed far too young to have given up on life so early, snarled at one another. “I don’t give a s…. where eat,” she screamed. “Just make sure you make it back in time to get on the blankin plane.” “Whatever,” he never even looked back.
It’s easy to forget what it felt like to live in darkness, isn’t it?
The lostness of those without Christ and without hope breaks His heart.
The crushing weight of their lostness moves me to think about ways I can connect with non-Christians.
Does it ever hit you how lost most of the people you meet in your daily life really are?
