I Should Sit on Benches More Often

Have you noticed that often, the extraordinary is tucked between the ordinary and mundane? A bee pocketing pollen as it flits from flower to flower. A child’s laughter amid the strain of a long day of bewildered parenting. The sun that creates never-two-the-same sunsets. This phenomenon was punctuated a few weeks ago when I attended the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer’s Conference in North Carolina. While there, something notable occurred—something holy injected into the commonplace.

I spotted a sun-soaked bench on my way to the auditorium for an evening session. I let my writer friends go ahead, favoring a moment in the late-day sun over a dark auditorium, and angled my body sideways on the bench toward the sun. Its warmth soaked my skin and soul. A segment of the six hundred writers attending the event filed past while I lingered in this sacred space.

I might have kept my eyes closed, my head tipped to the sun in silent retreat from the masses, but someone spoke to me in passing, commenting on what a lovely spot I’d found. Another similarly mentioned the sun’s beauty. I could hear the ache of longing in their voice and wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if they had chosen to join me.

I outran my introversion and decided to make eye contact with everyone who passed, intentionally greeting each one and embracing the fleeting exchanges between us. I felt like an unofficial welcoming committee of one. There were countless hellos and comments regarding my spot in the sun. Someone declared that I looked peaceful. A lady commented on how much she liked my shoes, another my outfit. The number of remarks was overwhelming and wonderful. All because I sat on the bench. All because I chose to see people and them me.

Then, a woman paused and placed her backpack at the end of the bench. We shared a hello and a few other words, and, in uncharacteristic boldness, I told her how adorable she was. She asked if she might join me for a moment, and I became the grateful recipient of disclosed deposits of heartache and beauty in a sacred exchange on a bench. I also made a new friend.

I was left marveling that one seemingly insignificant decision to linger could impress such an impact on me, both from the passing crowd and this individual. She and I saw each other throughout the coming days, and I said, “I should sit on benches more often,” in reference to having met her and discovering anew the marvelous way a simple hello, a word, or a smile has the capacity for mutual transformation. Holy exchanges, like mini miracles, deposited between the ordinary. Easy to miss if you’re too busy or not paying attention.

It occurs to me that Jesus was the bench-sitting type. How comforting that God-made-human would choose to tarry for others rather than rush to his next location. He paused to speak to the woman at the well, to call a sinner out of a tree and a bleeding woman out of the crowd. He paused to restore a blind man’s sight, sat for meals with sinners, and remained seated while a prostitute washed his feet with her tears. Others cried out to him, and he stopped to heal them. Thirty-four years ago, he did the same for me.

And so, in our ill-fitting garments of this weary world, may we be bench-sitters who allow room in our schedules to pause and sit a while. May we not let people pass by unseen but be those who slip off our sandals to make sacred space for the holy and miraculous in the midst of the ordinary.

May you be blessed to see miracles in the mundane.

Reflection:

1. In what ways have you noticed holy in the mundane?
2. What might happen if you became a bench-sitter and lingered with others a little longer?