Walking through the Mall

Sometimes my life feels like a carpet that’s frayed along every edge. A frayed carpet could last for years, provided that no string is tugged too violently, but with just the right circumstance the entire thing could come undone. I’m solid, reliable, and stable; I’ve hidden almost every tattered string out of site. I’m not sure that anyone knows just how close I’ve come to falling apart. Those haunting moments I spend in the dark are my own secret.

Some say that each generation invents new ways to fall apart, but I’ve never seen a need for more than the most ancient sins. I’ve heard power, money, and sex described as man’s version of PMS – prone to drive him to irrational, abnormal behavior. Perhaps there come new ways to grasp at those three, but all of life already seems geared to push me to them. In this American life, would even Mother Teresa or father Gandhi rise above?

My mind doesn’t need much encouragement in its flight to folly, but there’s plenty of impetus to be found. Even the most innocuous television shows are punctuated with advertisements pushing power, possessions, and people. Any one of those – or better, a combination of all three – is moneyback guaranteed to be the solution to all that ails you. Suppose I flee from television, knowing its snares. So I take a walk around the local mall. Rather than better, it is worse in nearly every facet. Each of the things peddled on TV walks around in flesh and blood, tempting and enticing even the most innocent in the crowd.

Frustrated in my attempts, I can run to the pages of literature. No real persons walk those pages, and there’s no sign of an image to allure my wandering eye. I scan the bookstore shelves, looking for a novel worth my time. But novel is not the word to describe what I find; each book cover convinces me that there’s only the old and tired storylines, repeated in a new language for a modern time. Misfortune, unrequited love, and ill-gotten gains sell just as well as they did centuries ago. Well was it written, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

So I leave the store, having grasped at the air and come back empty. I reemerge as if into a rushing stream; people flow in both directions, carried along by whatever urge takes their fancy. Most of the ones I pass won’t make eye contact, feigning fascination with the tile floor, the empty store window, or anything but the person drawing near. A scattered few among the throng dare my glance, locking eyes as if against hope. Each pair of pupils subtly betrays insecurity in their own way. Some eyes, longing for affection, speak seduction, either overtly or covertly.

Others, not having any hope of love, instead beg for help. Those, the puppy dog eyes, are the hardest to bear. We’ve all felt that same cry from our own hearts, and it hurts to watch them walk by, begging for rescue with a silent plea. That overwhelming hurt with no cure touches everyone, though only a few grieve deeply enough to be betrayed by their eyes.

Every few stare me down, their eyes unblinkingly challenging every passerby. Some do it out of hate, others simply yearn to be tested. Typically, they’re all men, both young and old They’re lost souls, men in a society that has no room for masculinity. Eyes shaded with eyeliner and bodies bedecked in clothing once only seen on women, their eyes are screaming for a fight.

But – and mind you this is rare – there are a few whose eyes aren’t glazed over. I suddenly find two gleaming orbs staring back at me untainted by guile and unclouded by shame. That fabled “twinkle in her eyes” manifests itself like a rainbow after a week of storms. Where once there was only gray, there’s a light shining forth clearer than day. Midnight is pierced and torn asunder. The rushing stream continues to flow, and the throng is no gentler than before. But in that look, in the hope that it represents, all despair is gone. If that one soul can rise above the mire and find its bearings, there’s still a chance for the rest.

The world is never changed all at once. Cultures are vast dunes, composed of single grains of sand. Shift one, and you might just see more follow.

Tags: Faith, hope