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The best part of most every journey is the great people you meet along the way. This is true whether we're on summer vacation, a round-the-world trip, or in an expedition to the corner grocery store.
People watching and people sharing are truly some of life's greatest delights. We are all made in the image and likeness of God. More often than not if you look closely enough - and sometimes without hardly having to look at all - you can see God's beauty and goodness shining through ever so brilliantly all along the way.
I recently made a list of "beautiful people" that I have met in the meanderings of my life, and while their names or descriptions may not mean very much to you, I hope that maybe my meandering thoughts about them will suggest some even better thoughts in your mind upon which you in turn can reflect upon with even greater delight and more profit.
My list: A second-grade teacher who always had a smile on her face; a couple of good buddies, almost like soul brothers, with whom I shared growing-up experiences galore; several fellow seminarians with whom I bonded in ways that have lasted for over a half century; a bishop or two that I thought could walk on water; siblings and relatives who have become unmatchable in the quality of their persons; some families in each parish I have served, who exemplify in the manner of their lives that they really, really have caught the message and the joys of what Catholic living is really all about; a couple of very wise senior persons, who by the test of time have been polished into diamonds of great luster.
You might want to try making a list of the 10 people who have contributed to the making up of the most treasured, wonderful and valued experiences of your life. I suspect you may have a hard time limiting it to 10 once you start to make the list or even when you begin to think about it.
The world is filled with the grandeur of God, and it is forever bursting forth in the most unlikely places and sometimes even in the most unlikely persons. I recently bought a pair of those huge amber-colored sunglasses to wear over my regular glasses, and I like them very much. They make the greens of life greener and they soften the brightness of life's glare to a tolerable and almost soothing level. Then again you have to be a little careful, because they also change the green traffic light signal into a blue one to the confusion of your usual perceptions.
Attitude and expectation are the two lenses of the glasses of life that color the perception of most of its experience more than anything else. I urge you to deliberately choose to wear these finely honed and sensitively colored lenses on your journey, and thereby to begin to discover as never before the great number of delights that some of the wonderful people with whom you are walking carry just below the surface. Happy meanderings!
Father Donald Meehling is parochial vicar at St. Aloysius Parish in Springfield.
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