Red Carpet Room

this picture isn’t blurry. we were simply vibrating at a different frequency
when it was taken. afm
————————————————————-

London, England
4.44 PM

most of us believe we know what we think we see.

erica, my 14 year old daughter, and i were outbound on a mission into the heart of europe, and passed the time chatting as we walked through the los angeles international airport.

“it’s like drawing,” she said.

“yes, drawing is all about seeing,” i said. “most of us sketch by looking more at our work on the paper than the subject we are sketching. we try to draw by memory rather than by observation, by what we think we see rather than what we see. learning to draw is all about learning to see.” [yes, we often talk like this in the mcmanus home. like my daughter says, strange is not a crime].

before my turn towards seeing christ, i had no recollection of ever seeing church buildings. i was blind to their huge presence on the american landscape. after i saw christ, these new realities began to suddenly pop up and out of everywhere. i remember returning to college and seeing for the first time the immense methodist church building at the entrance of the property. i had never seen it before. had God built that church for me over the summer? no, he’d given me new eyes.

“for example, erica,” i said, “as we walked towards the gates. “most people in this airport don’t know about the red carpet rooms.”

“what’s that?”

“they’re lounges used by frequent flyers and business people,” i said. suddenly, as if coordinated by the finger of God, the wall to our left opened. “there,” i said feeling quite like a magician.

we looked through the wall into a room of comfortable chairs with a bar and tvs.

“whoa,” she said. the sliding doors closed. “what was that?”

the doors were painted in such a way that it blended with the walls on both sides well. one would have to “see it” to know it was there. [Or perhaps, one would have to know it was there to see it.]

i looked up to read the signs to make sure we’re going in the right direction.

gates 70-77
restrooms
red carpet room

suddenly all of the clues began to pop up and out. the world was new. she knew what she was seeing. a whole new world existed behind this wall that was not a wall but a door, a sliding door.

“red carpet room,” erica said.

i love it when she nods her head and gets this smile on her face, like she’s been let in on a little mystery. “red carpet room,” i said.

people draw what they think they see not what they’re looking at. learning to draw and learning to live have this in common: it’s all about learning to see.

into the mystic…

© alex mcmanus, 2005

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Tags: Culture, Future, Mission