The Power of Noticing

I love hamburgers and hamburger joints. I found a new one that did not look very fancy, most good ones don’t, and found a gold mine. Every time I walked in to the place the young owner spoke and welcomed me. Then one day I noticed he was wearing a helmet and, in spite of the natural reluctance to bring up tough subjects, I started a conversation with him. He told me he had brain cancer and had to wear the helmet in case he fell. I was able to tell him how wonderful his food was especially his own mustard sauce which I said I could eat my shoes with that sauce on them. We laughed and ended what would be called a brief incident in time. I have no way of knowing whether that conversation proved to be helpful to him but he did seem to appreciate getting to tell his story and hear good things about his food, he was a trained chef and food mattered to him.

I am currently hosting a grief group on Zoom and one member had told the group in the first meeting that her son had died five years ago but did not tell many details. Then last meeting she began telling how her son went to culinary school and always wanted a restaurant. At first all he could afford was a food truck but, after a time, he was able to open a hamburger place and suddenly I knew the rest of the story. He was the young man in the helmet and I was able to tell the mother that I knew her son and thought of him every time I went to the restaurant.

One of the great fears anyone in grief faces is the fear that their loved one will be forgotten. That the world will move on and no one will remember. There is no way I can know or relate how that mother must have felt when someone remembered and continues to remember her son five years later. Somebody noticed and it made a difference.

I am continually amazed at how Jesus always seemed to notice people. The woman who sneaked a touch of his garment, a man who had been by a pool for fifteen years and no one had bothered to help, the tax collector who climbed a tree, a woman who came alone to the well because she was an outcast, in a time when men did not think women worthy of their time, He noticed and it changed her life.

He also talked a great deal about our noticing and loving the stranger, the poor, the outcast and said in so doing we were entertaining angels unaware.

I remember a time in my life when I felt invisible. It seemed as if no one noticed me. I cannot describe how alone that feels. How insignificant and useless your life seems to be.

I distinctly remember one particular day when feelings of inferiority overwhelmed me and left me fearful of having any future or seeing any value in the present. I went to the church I had been a member of all of my life hoping someone would notice and say something, anything would help at that moment. It was a week day and the staff and secretaries were involved in some project. They barely looked up and murmured a “Hi” and looked back at the project. I drove outside the city and cried in desperation. That experience convinced me to always look for the lonely. To try to speak to everyone knowing that sooner or later I will find someone who feels invisible and horribly lonely and perhaps just being noticed will help. I am far from perfect in this endeavor but I try to ask the names of wait staff in restaurants and, if I can do so without hindering their work I try to find out all I can about them. I have no idea if I have entertained any angels but it has been a lot of fun and I have met some delightful people along the way.

Let’s face it while living in an isolated society full of eyes glued to phones, media replacing physical contacts and anger running rampant everywhere we must find ways to notice and care. Just noticing may not sound like much but In a lonely world a smile can be like sunshine on a cloudy day.

Understanding the potential power of being noticed my new morning prayer is “Open my eyes and heighten my sensitivity that I might notice an angel today.”