crossing paths

This day, like most days, will bring many crossed paths.

I consider how often these encounters happen with little awareness. A greeting, "How's it goin'?" happens while the feet are still moving, and the eyes have already cast their glance further down the road. We have such important duties and destinations.

I consider how often my way of encountering you contains silent assumptions: surely your thoughts are not traveling as far as my thoughts, and surely your feelings do not dive as deep as my own.

Yet, how often have I been surprised by an I-had-no-idea sort of moment, when there is enough of a pause in time and attention to learn that you have been carrying a loss beyond my imagining; you are bearing a burden that surpasses my strength; you are bursting with a joy that the world so dearly needs; you are ready to speak a mystery that will raise the hair on my arms. How often have I been surprised by the wonder of Presence, in the one who crosses my path?

I am tempted to say, "Not often enough." But such thoughts only make my feet move faster and my eyes look beyond what is here. Perhaps we can simply linger a bit longer when our paths cross this day.