Airports are portals...more than just from country to country, state to state or city to city, but into the hearts and minds of people everywhere. The latter may be the most "terrifying" of them all. Oh, how being surrounded by diversity, culture and beauty can be so compelling, thought-provoking and enriching. Yet, somehow, adversely, the opposite can be the byproduct--a piercing spoken word, a cold stare and unashamed contemptuous body language bringing shattering effects upon a moment of carefree expression.
And she continues to dance. In ways, I am envious.
There was a young woman, I am guessing in her twenties dancing with fluidity throughout concourse C of Charlotte's Douglas Airport. Her conscious and spirit-filled movements lofted through the concourse as a fragrance...yet an unnerving freedom began to permeate throughout the on-lookers. Murmurs, laughter, pointing...Whom is it that is so concerning and what is it that has such a suffocating grip upon the viewers of such a carefree demonstration?
I quickly found the looks sickening. Why? I find it troubling to even find words for the animosity that was growing from deep within me. How quickly we are as humans to leap to conclusions, judgments and finalizing verdicts. It was as I could hear the gavel strike. This young woman had no right to be breathing our air...Harsh...I think so, and somehow from her lively, expressive dancing and consequential judgments placed upon her because of it rapidly the conversation spread to political spin and discord that equally made my stomach turn. Not that I know, but from my short stop in concourse C, I am going to gather that N.C. is not a blue state. Funny how one can discovered such things in a very short period of observation.
Then the worst came like a flood; it wasn't the arbitrary comments from those around me, but my own personal discord and angst rising up from my core. This young woman's verdict had been given: judge, jury and executioner...if her fate was that of the people around her, the future would be less than bleak. Yet my judgment, my own condemnation was rising and I very harshly was brought into my own reality. How was all of what was inside of me any different from what was being spewed from the jesting crowd within the concourse? Nothing...and of course I didn't entirely stay silent...just trying to balance out the crowd...
Like a whisper from my inside:
"From the overflow of the mouth, the heart speaks." I wonder how I am doing.... what does my heart look like? I wonder how we are all doing. Do we only see demographics, nationalities, cultures? And are we only examining with skepticism? What is the state of this place? Where are we and where are we to go? I pray that the Lord would bless and teach us all...for it is only him who shows unconditional love and grants us true acceptance which is clearly not a top priority, begrudgingly, even for me I suppose.
I pray for more: for more of what we seem to be lacking...ears to hear, eyes to see, a heart full of love for all. Patience. Compassion. Zeal. I pray that I would be stripped of my own biases, my own angst, the ugliness of my soul that not even I want to examine or acknowledge. I pray it would all be stripped from me and this world and that one day we might see one another not from afar, but from a common ground of humanity.
