Juggling At The Airport

The other day I was at a gate in the airport about to board an airplane when I saw something that was completely unexpected and awesome. 

There was a man sitting near me, who was holding four juggling balls.  As he waited with his wife, who was sitting next to him staring blankly at her phone, he suddenly tossed the balls into the air and began juggling. 

Everyone around him started staring, transfixed by the sight of it.  No one said anything.  But we went from being just a bunch of weary travelers on a grey, cold Saturday morning to an audience filled with wonder. 

The juggling got a bit elaborate as he moved his hands deftly tossing the balls in odd directions.  A little girl behind me softly said, "Wow!" 

Just then, his wife nudged him with her elbow, and without looking up, said something to him about what she'd been looking at on her phone.  The man stopped juggling abruptly and with a resigned look on his face leaned over and looked at it with her. 

While it was obvious that she could have cared less about her husband's juggling, I'm willing to bet there was a time when she was super impressed by it, and probably cheered him on with glee. 

But she had become so used to it that she never even looked up anymore. 

It made me wonder something: Where in my life of faith had I become as complacent?  Where in my life of faith had I grown so "used to" God that I no longer felt surprised by God?

I wondered if my vision had become so narrowed to the six inches in front of my face, that I had begun to miss out on all of the wonder that is happening around me.  

Novelist Willa Cather once wrote this bit of amazing-ness: 

The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.

As we step into this season of Lent, we need to be mindful of the ways that we have begun to narrow our gaze, to become blinded to the wonder of God.  

May this season of preparation be a time when you lift your head and look around you with new vision and an open heart.  May you be surprised by joy and the wonder of God. 

And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always.  Amen.