I enjoy watching people’s faces. Before you go and haul me before the local magistrate of common decency, hear me out. People watching, right? We all do it, we all enjoy it. Some more surreptitiously than others. And so when I’m out on a walk and seeing so many walk past me from the other direction…of course I let my glance brush their faces. I’m not prying into their innermost thoughts, though that is what fascinates me so. What are they thinking? What are they pondering? What images kaleidoscope within their minds? For just as my thoughts race to and fro in the frantic tossing of the neurons of my brain, all the people that pass surely have lives just as full and varied and yes even scary as my own. Hence I wonder…how many grocery lists tumble? How many blushing daydreams of crushes blossom? How many replays of cringe moments blare forth? I smile to myself as I think thus and then wonder – how will they interpret such? For yes, surely some of their glances touch me. I fear to live in a place where all fear to look at the face of another, to inhabit a society in which only a cold screen can truly receive our full blooded gaze. I wish to express just a bit of joy that we live in a moment where we all – me and that jogger over there and that mom and stroller ahead of me and that singing biker behind me – walk this small patch of vibrant growing singing earth. (Well perhaps the earth is paved over just here, but you get the point) I smile knowing that I walk with fellow men and women and little children that are souls as full formed and image bearing as myself. It is a wondrous thing to let myself ponder. So yes, next time you’re out and about and surrounded by people? Give it a whirl, watch some people. Don’t be creepy about it. Just be a person. And while you’re at it, say a prayer.