Tin Man

So I work near downtown. Granted, this downtown is hardly like any downtown you might imagine. I think they make the stoplight patterns long enough to piss people off and make it look like there's a lot of traffic downtown. PLUS...they have one-ways going every which way so it takes you twice as long to get to a place that would have been a lot simpler by making a left turn.

I digress. I do that sort of thing.

Anyways, a particular afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was sitting at a notoriously long light and I looked out the car window and noticed this homeless/wanderer guy. I don't really know if he's homeless. From the front porch at my office, I've seen him carrying big bags of aluminum cans and such; sometimes twice a day. And this guy is pretty short. Sometimes the bags are bigger than he is. Anyways, I remember seeing him in the winter wandering around with a t-shirt on. I went home, found a few sweaters (which he would probably have swam in) and hats and such that I don't use and kept them in my car for the next time I saw him wandering around. I didn't see him the rest of the winter. I thought, "Thanks, Lord. The one time I am going to try and employ your teachings, the guy goes off and freezes to death."

Again...digression. Tired yet?

I'm sitting at this light, facing west. I see him walking on the sidewalk heading the other direction, walking briskly as he does with a slight drag to his right side. All of a sudden, almost parallel to me, he sees this rose bush in front of this old, rickety apartment building. He stopped. Looked at it. Half-bent over and took a huge whiff of one of the flowers, turned and kept walking.

I sat there and thought...here's this probably homeless guy; hopefully at least a shut-in. He probably doesn't have much to do, I don't really know. But he took a total of maybe 15 seconds to stop and enjoy something of beauty. I thought, "Why don't I do that?" I know there are 15 seconds in my day when I can do that. Heck, I might even be able to carve out a minute or two. Most of the time, I don't. I know it's cliche...stop and smell the flowers. Figuratively speaking, though...I think we would like our lives more if we did something like stopping and smelling flowers. Appreciating nature. Acknowledging something of beauty. I think I should.