Mindful Preoccupation

My puzzled mind is my amusement...

Today as I was on the train to class, I noticed a lady reading a book. It is common for people to read but somehow she was rather different as she was reading a book that is about an inch thick. On that book itself were two huge paper clips on the book just to hold back the pages from flipping over as she reads. More over, Every time she flips a page, she folds the book to its back to the point that I was sure she was about to tear off that particular page from the binding of the book. She does it for every single page and I thought it was rather tedious to do so. Plus, i felt for the book as if it was physically abused by her handling.

My tendency is to start observing her in every aspect, where I take note of her age, her looks, her dressing, her behavior, guessing her occupation, noticing any rings on her fingers and so forth. The Sherlock Holmes started to come out from within me and started deducing the reason for her strange behavior. After observing her for about 10 minutes I gave up and just concluded that she may some sort of experience that caused her to do things that way.

Culture and worldview is something of my forte as I strive passionately to understand people who are ever so different from me. But going beyond just cultural and worldview differences, it also extends to understanding personality of the person that I look a lot into. I remembered how easy it was for me to judge people and passively criticizing people for their flaws and mistakes until I found myself losing touch of my own life where I fall so far behind the standard that I have personally setup.

By no means that I am to water down what is to be deemed absolute and stand for it but it i rather understanding that there needs to be grace in leading people to understand these absolutes in as set forth by God Himself and that very process is the reason why I am doing what I am doing now. I gladly find myself getting to know people and their ways and the events that take place in their lives so that I can help lead them a little closer to God the best way I know how.